
Class ?"K4/H .T 
Gcpiglitl?.iSi^ 

CflPQUCHT DEPOSm 



z 



f /3 




2Q- 7-S<^ 






AURORA LEIGH 



a Poem in Jsiint Books 



BY 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 



FK03I THE TWELFTH LONDON EDITION 



23 



Bliistrateti tg 

F. T. MERRILL, MARY B. SMITH, FLORENTINE H. HAYDEN, 
AND F. E. WRIGHT 



lEngrabEti bg 

ANDREW, KILBURN, AND SEAVERNS 



NEW YORK N^/7-y 
THOMAS Y. CROW ELL 

No. 13 AsTOR Place 




T« 



,/^ 



W/" 



Copyright, 
By T, Y. Crowell & Co. 

1SS3. 



ELECTROTYPED. 



BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 
NO. 4 PEARL STREET. 



©etJication 

TO 

JOHN KENYON, ESQUIRE. 



The words "cousin" and "friend" are constantly recur- 
ring in this poem, the last pages of which have been finished 
under the hospitality of your roof, my own dearest cousin 
and friend, — cousin and friend in a sense of less equality 
and greater disinterestedness than Romney's. 

Ending, therefore, and preparing once more to quit Eng- 
land, I venture to leave in your hands this book, the most 
mature of my works, and the one into which my highest 
convictions upon life and art have entered ; that as, through 
my various efforts in literature, and steps in life, you have 
believed in me, borne with me, and been generous to me, far 
beyond the common uses of mere relationship or sympathy 
of mind, so you may kindly accept in sight of the public this 
poor sign of esteem, gratitude, and affection from 

Your unforgetting 

E. B. B. 



39 Devonshire Place, 
October 17, 1856. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

First Book 5 

Second Book 4i 

Third Book Si 

Fourth Book 120 

Fifth Book ^59 

Sixth Book ^99 

Seventh Book • • 240 

Eighth Book 280 

Ninth Book 321 



AURORA LEIGH, 



FIRST BOOK. 



Of writing many books there is no end ; 

And I, who have written much in prose and verse 

For others' uses, will write now for mine, — 

Will write my story for my better self. 

As when you paint your portrait for a friend, 

Who keeps it in a drawer, and looks at it 

Long after he has ceased to love you, just 

To hold together what he was and is. 

I, writing thus, am still what men call young : 

I have not so far left the coasts of life 

To travel inland, that I cannot hear 

That murmur of the outer Infinite 

Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep 

When wondered at for smiling ; not so far. 

But still I catch my mother at her post 

Beside the nursery-door, with finger up, 

" Hush, hush, here's too much noise ! " while her sweet eyes 

Leap forward, taking part against her word 

In the child's riot. Still I sit, and feel 

My father's slow hand, when she had left us both, 

Stroke out my childish curls across his knee. 

And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew 



AURORA LEIGH. 



He liked it better than a better jest) 

Inquire how many golden scudi went 

To make such ringlets. O my father's hand, 

Stroke heavily, heavily, the poor hair down. 

Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee ! 

I'm still too young, too young, to sit alone. 

I write. My mother was a Florentine, 

Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me 

When scarcely I was four years old ; my life 

A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp 

Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail ; 

She could not bear the joy of giving life ; 

The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss 

Had left a longer weight upon my lips, 

It might have steadied the uneasy breath, 

And reconciled and fraternized my soul 

With the new order. As it was, indeed, 

I felt a mother-want about the world. 

And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb 

Left out at night in shutting up the fold, — 

As restless as a nest-deserted bird 

Grown chill through something being away, though what 

It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born 

To make my father sadder, and myself 

Not overjoyous, truly. Women know 

The way to rear up children (to be just) ; 

They know a simple, merry, tender knack 

Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes. 

And stringing pretty words that make no sense, 

And kissing full sense into empty words ; 

Which things are corals to cut life upon. 

Although such trifles : children learn by such, 

Love's holy earnest in a pretty play, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



And get not over-early solemnized, 

But seeing, as in a rose-bush, Love's Divine, 

Which burns and hurts not, — not a single bloom, — 

Become aware and unafraid of love. 

Such good do mothers. Fathers love as well, — 

Mine did, I know, — but still with heavier brains, 

And wills more consciously responsible. 

And not as wisely, since less foolishly : 

So mothers have God's license to be missed. 

My father was an austere Englishman, 

Who, after a dry lifetime spent at home 

In college-learning, law, and parish talk, 

Was flooded with a passion unaware. 

His whole provisioned and complacent past 

Drowned out from him that moment. As he stood 

In Florence, where he had come to spend a month. 

And note the secret of Da Vinci's drains, 

He musing somewhat absently perhaps 

Some English question . . . whether men should pay 

The unpopular but necessary tax 

With left or right hand — in the alien sun 

In that great square of the Santissima 

There drifted past him (scarcely marked enough 

To move his comfortable island scorn) 

A train of priestly banners, cross, and psalm. 

The white-veiled, rose-crowned maidens holding up 

Tall tapers, weighty for such wrists, aslant 

To the blue luminous tremor of the air. 

And letting drop the white wax as they went 

To eat the bishop's wafer at the church ; 

From which long trail of chanting priests and girls 

A face flashed like a cymbal on his face, 

And shook with silent clangor brain and heart, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Transfiguring him to music. Thus, even thus, 
He, too, received his sacramental gift 
With eucharistic meanings ; for he loved. 

And thus beloved, she died. I've heard it said 

That but to see him, in the first surprise 

Of widower and father, nursing me, 

Unmothered little child of four years old, — 

His large man's hands afraid to touch my curls. 

As if the gold would tarnish, his grave lips 

Contriving such a miserable smile 

As if he knew needs must, or I should die, 

And yet 'twas hard, — would almost make the stones 

Cry out for pity. There's a verse he set 

In Santa Croce to her memory, — 

" Weep for an infant too young to weep much 

When death removed this mother," — stops the mirth 

To-day on women's faces when they walk, 

With rosy children hanging on their gowns, 

Under the cloister to escape the sun 

That scorches in the piazza. After which 

He left our Florence, and made haste to hide 

Himself, his prattling child, and silent grief, 

Among the mountains above Pelago ; 

Because unmothered babes, he thought, had need 

Of mother-nature more than others use, 

And Pan's white goats, with udders warm, and full 

Of mystic contemplations, come to feed 

Poor milkless lips of orphans like his own. 

Such scholar-scraps he talked, I've heard from friends 

For even prosaic men who wear grief long 

Will get to wear it as a hat aside 

With a flower stuck in't.- Father, then, and child. 

We lived among the mountains many years, 




" I, a little child, would crouch 
For hours upon the floor, with knees drawn up, 
And gaze across them, half in terror, half 
In adoration at the picture." — Page 9. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



God's silence on the outside of the house, 
And we who did not speak too loud within, 
And old Assunta to make up the lire, 
Crossing herself whene'er a sudden flame' 
Which lightened from the firewood made alive 
That picture of my mother on the wall. 

The painter drew it after she was dead ; 

And when the face was finished, throat and hands, 

Her cameriera carried him, in hate 

Of the English-fashioned shroud, the last brocade 

She dressed in at the Pitti. " He should paint 

No sadder thing than that," she swore, " to wrong 

Her poor signora." Therefore very strange 

The effect was. I, a little child, would crouch 

For hours upon the floor, with knees drawn up, 

And gaze across them, half in terror, half 

In adoration, at the picture there, — 

That swan-like supernatural white life 

Just sailing upward from the red stiff silk 

Which seemed to have no part in it, nor power 

To keep it from quite breaking out of bounds. 

For hours I sate and stared. Assunta's awe 

And my poor father's melancholy eyes 

Still pointed that way. That way went my thoughts 

When wandering beyond sight. And as I grew 

In years, I mixed, confused, unconsciously. 

Whatever I last read, or heard, or dreamed, — 

Abhorrent, admirable, beautiful, 

Pathetical, or ghastly, or grotesque, — 

With still that face . . . which did not therefore change. 

But kept the mystic level of all forms. 

Hates, fears, and admirations — was by turns 

Ghost, fiend, and angel, fairy, witch, and sprite ; 



lO AURORA LEIGH. 



A dauntless Muse who eyes a dreadful Fate ; 

A loving Psyche who loses sight of Love ; 

A still Medusa with mild milky brows, 

All curdled and all clothed upon with snakes 

Whose slime falls fast as sweat will ; or anon 

Our Lady of the Passion, stabbed with swords 

Where the Babe sucked ; or Lamia in her first 

Moonlighted pallor, ere she shrunk and blinked, 

And shuddering wriggled down to the unclean ; 

Or my own mother, leaving her last smile 

In her last kiss upon the baby-mouth 

My father pushed down on the bed for that ; 

Or my dead mother, without smile or kiss, 

Buried at Florence. All which images. 

Concentrated on the picture, glassed themselves 

Before my meditative childhood, as 

The incoherencies of change and death 

Are represented fully, mixed and merged. 

In the smooth fair mystery of perpetual life. 

And while I stared away my childish wits 

Upon my mother's picture, (ah, poor child !) 

My father, who through love had suddenly 

Thrown off the old conventions, broken loose 

From chin-bands of the soul, like Lazarus, 

Yet had no time to learn to talk, and walk. 

Or grow anew familiar with the sun ; 

Who had reached to freedom, not to action, lived. 

But lived as one entranced, with thoughts, not aims ; 

Whom love had unmade from a comman man. 

But not completed to an uncommon man, — 

My father taught me what he had learnt the best 

Before he died, and left me, — grief and love. 

And seeing we had books among the hills. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Strong words of counselling souls confederate 

With vocal pines arid waters, out of books 

He taught me all the ignorance of men, 

And how God laughs in heaven when any man 

Says, " Here I'm learned ; this I understand ; 

In that I am never caught at fault or doubt." 

He sent the schools to school, demonstrating 

A fool will pass for such through one mistake, 

While a philosopher will pass for such 

Through said mistakes being ventured in the gross. 

And heaped up to a system. 

I am like, 
They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows 
Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth 
Of delicate features, — paler, near as grave ; 
But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole. 
And makes it better sometimes than itself. 

So nine full years our days were hid with God 

Among his mountains. I was just thirteen, 

Still growing like the plants from unseen roots 

In tongue-tied springs, and suddenly awoke 

To full life and life's needs and agonies, 

With an intense, strong, struggling heart, beside 

A stone-dead father. Life, struck sharp on death, 

Makes awful lightning. His last word was, " Love — 

Love, my child, love, love ! " — (then he had done with grief) 

" Love, my child." Ere I answered, he was gone. 

And none was left to love in all the world. 

There ended childhood. What succeeded next 
I recollect, as, after fevers, men 
Thread back the passage of delirium. 
Missing the turn still, baffled by the door ; 



12 AURORA LEIGH. 



Smooth, endless days, notched here and there with knives, 

A weary, wormy darkness, spurred i' the flank 

With flame, that it should eat and end itself 

Like some tormented scorpion. Then at last 

I do remember clearly how there came 

A stranger with authority, not right 

(I thought not), who commanded, caught me up 

From old Assunta's neck ; how with a shriek 

She let me go, while I, with ears too full 

Of my father's silence to shriek back a word, 

In all a child's astonishment at grief, 

Stared at the wharf-edge, where she stood and moaned. 

My poor Assunta, where she stood and moaned ! 

The white walls, the blue hills, my Italy, 

Drawn backward from the shuddering steamer-deck. 

Like one in anger drawing back her skirts 

Which suppliants catch at. Then the bitter sea 

Inexorably pushed between us both. 

And, sweeping up the ship with my despair, 

Threw us out as a pasture to the stars. 

Ten nights and days we voyaged on the deep ; 

Ten nights and days without the common face 

Of any day or night ; the moon and sun 

Cut off from the green reconciling earth, 

To starve into a blind ferocity. 

And glare unnatural ; the very sky 

(Dropping its bell-net down upon the sea 

As if no human heart should 'scape alive), 

Bedraggled with the desolating salt, 

Until it seemed no more that holy heaven 

To which my father went. All new and strange ; 

The universe turned stranger, for a child. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Then land ! — then England ! oh, the frosty cliffs 

Looked cold upon me. Could I find a home 

Among those mean red houses through the fog ? 

And when I heard my father's language first 

From alien lips which had no kiss for mine, 

I wept aloud, then laughed, then wept, then wept ; 

And some one near me said the child was mad 

Through much sea-sickness. The train swept us on. 

Was this my father's England ? the great isle .'' 

The ground seemed cut up from the fellowship 

Of verdure, field from field, as man from man : 

The skies themselves looked low and positive. 

As almost you could touch them with a hand. 

And dared to do it, they were so far off 

From God's celestial crystals ; all things blurred 

And dull and vague. Did Shakspeare and his mates 

Absorb the light here ? Not a hill or stone 

With heart to strike a radiant color up, 

Or active outline on the indifferent air. 

I think I see my father's sister stand 

Upon the hall-step of her country-house 

To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm. 

Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight 

As if for taming accidental thoughts 

From possible pulses ; brown hair pricked with gray 

By fiigid use of life (she was not old, 

Although my father's elder by a year) ; 

And nose drawn sharply, yet in delicate lines ; 

A close mild mouth, a little soured about 

The ends, through speaking unrequited loves 

Or, peradventure, niggardly half-truths ; 

Eyes of no color — once they might have smiled. 

But never, never, have forgot themselves 



14 AURORA LEIGH. 

In smiling ; cheeks in which was yet a rose 
Of perished summers, Hke a rose in a book, 
Kept more for ruth than pleasure — if past bloom, 
Past fading also. 

She had lived, we'll say, 
A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, 
A quiet life, which was not life at all 
(But that, she had not lived enough to know), 
Between the vicar and the county squires, 
The lord-lieutenant looking down sometimes 
From the empyrean to assure their souls 
Against chance vulgarisms, and, in the abyss, 
The apothecar}^ looked on once a year 
To prove their soundness of humility. 
The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts 
Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats, 
Because we are of one flesh, after all, 
And need one flannel (with a proper sense 
Of difference in the quality) ; and still 
The book-club, guarded from your modern trick 
Of shaking dangerous questions from the crease, 
Preserved her intellectual. She had lived 
A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage, 
Accounting that to leap from perch to perch 
Was act and joy enough for any bird. 
Dear Heaven, how silly are the things that live 
In thickets, and eat berries ! 

I, alas ! 
A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage, 
And she was there to meet me. Very kind. 
Bring the clean water, give out the fresh seed. 

She stood upon the steps to welcome me, 
Calm, in black garb. I clung about her neck : 



AURORA LEIGH. 15 

Young babes, who catch at every shred of wool 
To draw the new hght closer, catch and cling 
Less blindly. In my ears my father's word 
Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells, — 
' Love, love, my child." She, black there with my grief. 
Might feel my love : she was his sister once. 
\ clung to her. A moment she seemed moved, 
ILissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling, 
A-nd drew me feebly through the hall into 
The room she sate in. There, with some strange spasm 
Of pain and passion, she wrung loose my hand 
Imperiously, and held me at arm's-length. 
And with two gray-steel naked-bladed eyes 
Searched through my face, — ay, stabbed it through and 

through. 
Through brows and cheeks and chin, as if to find 
A wicked murderer in my innocent face, 
If not here, there perhaps. Then, drawing breath. 
She struggled for her ordinary calm, 
And missed it rather ; told me not to shrink, 
As if she had told me not to lie or swear, 
" She loved my father, and would love me, too, 
As long as I deserved it." Very kind. 

I understood her meaning afterward : 

She thought to find my mother in my face. 

And questioned it for that. For she, my aunt, 

Had loved my father truly, as she could, 

And hated with the gall of gentle souls 

My Tuscan mother, who had fooled away 

A wise man from wise courses, a good man 

From obvious duties, and depriving her. 

His sister, of the household precedence. 

Had wronged his tenants, robbed his native land, 



1 6 AURORA LEIGH, 

And made him mad, alike by life and death, 

In love and sorrow. She had pored for years 

What sort of woman could be suitable 

To her sort of hate, to entertain it with, 

And so her very curiosity 

Became hate, too, and all the idealism 

She ever used in life was used for hate, 

Till hate, so nourished, did exceed at last 

The love from which it grew in strength and heat, 

And wrinkled her smooth conscience with a sense 

Of disputable virtue (say not sin) 

When Christian doctrine was enforced at church. 

And thus my father's sister was to me 

My mother's hater. From that day she did 

Her duty by me (I appreciate it 

In her own word as spoken to herself). 

Her duty in large measure, well pressed out. 

But measured always. She was generous, bland. 

More courteous than was tender, gave me still 

The first place, as if fearful that God's saints 

Would look down suddenly and say, " Herein 

You missed a point, I think, through lack of love„ 

Alas ! a mother never is afraid 

Of speaking angrily to any child. 

Since love, she knows, is justified of love. 

And I — I was a good child, on the whole, 
A meek and manageable child. Why not ? 
I did not live to have the faults of life. 
There seemed more true life in my father's grave 
Than in all England. Since that threw me off 
Who fain would cleave (his latest will, they say, 
Consigned me to his land), I only thought 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 7 



Of lying quiet there, where I was thrown 
Like seaweed on the rocks, and suffering her 
To prick me to a pattern with her pin, 
Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf. 
And dry out from my drowned anatomy 
The last sea-salt left in me. 

So it was. 
I broke the copious curls upon my head 
In braids, because she liked smooth-ordered hair, 
I left off saying my sweet Tuscan words 
Which still at any stirring of the heart 
Came up to float across the English phrase 
As lilies {Bene or Che che), because 
She liked my father's child to speak his tongue. 
I learnt the collects and the catechism 
The creeds, from Athanasius back to Nice^ 
The Articles, the Tracts against the times 
(By no means Buonaventure's " Prick of Love "), 
And various popular synopses of 
Inhuman doctrines never taught by John, 
Because she liked instructed piety. 
I learnt my complement of classic French 
(Kept pure of Balzac and neologism) 
And German also, since she liked a range 
Of liberal education, — tongues, not books. 
I learnt a little algebra, a little 
Of the mathematics, brushed with extreme flounce 
The circle of the sciences, because 
She misliked women who are frivolous. 
I learnt the royal genealogies 
Of Oviedo, the internal laws 
Of the Burmese Empire^ by how many feet 
Mount Chimborazo outsoars Teneriffe, 
What navigable river joins itself 



1 8 AURORA LEIGH. 

To Lara, and what census of the year five 

Was taken at Klagenfurt, because she liked 

A general insight into useful facts. 

I learnt much music, such as would have been 

As quite impossible in Johnson's day 

As still it might be wished, fine sleights of hand 

And unimagined fingering, shuffling off 

The hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes 

To a noisy Tophet ; and I drew . . . costumes 

From French engravings, nereids neatly draped 

(With smirks of simmering godship). I washed in 

Landscapes from nature (rather say, washed out), 

I danced the polka and Cellarius, 

Spun glass, stuffed birds, and modelled flowers in wax, 

Because she liked accomplishments in girls. 

I read a score of books on womanhood, 

To prove, if women do not think at all. 

They may teach thinking (to a maiden-aunt, 

Or else the author), — books that boldly assert 

Their right of comprehending husband's talk 

When not too deep, and even of answering 

With pretty " may it please you," or " so it is ; " 

Their rapid insight and fine aptitude. 

Particular worth and general missionariness. 

As long as they keep quiet by the fire. 

And never say " no " when the world says " ay," 

For that is fatal ; their angelic reach 

Of virtue, chiefly used to sit and darn. 

And fatten household sinners ; their, in brief, 

Potential faculty in every thing 

Of abdicating power in it ; she owned 

She liked a woman to be womanly. 

And English women, she thanked God, and sighed 

(Some people always sigh in thanking God) 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 9 



Were models to the universe. And last 

I learned cross-stitch, because she did not like 

To see me wear the night with empty hands, 

A-doing nothing. So my shepherdess 

Was something, after all (the pastoral saints 

Be praised for't), leaning lovelorn, with pink eyes, 

To match her shoes, when I mistook the silks. 

Her head uncrushed by that round weight of hat 

So strangely similar to the tortoise-shell 

Which slew the tragic poet. / 

/ By the way, 
The works of women are symbolical. 
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, 
Producing what ? A pair of slippers, sir. 
To put on when you're weary, or a stool 
To stumble over, and vex you ..." Curse that stool ! " 
Or else, at best, a cushion, where you lean 
And sleep, and dream of something we are not, 
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas ! 
This hurts most, this, — that after all we are paid 
The worth of our work, perhaps. 

In looking down 
Those years of education (to return) 
I wonder if Brinvilliers suffered more 
In the water-torture . . . flood succeeding flood 
To drench the incapable throat, and split the veins . . . 
Than I did. Certain of your feebler souls 
Go out in such a process ; many pine 
To a sick, inodorous light ; my own endured : 
I had relations in the Unseen, and drew 
The elemental nutriment and heat 
From nature, as earth feels the sun at nights, 
Or as a babe sucks surely in the dark 
I kept the life thrust on me, on the outside 



^ 



20 AURORA LEIGH. 



Of the inner life, with all its ample room 
For heart and lungs, for will and intellect, 
Inviolable by conventions. God, 
I thank thee for that grace of thine ! 

At first 
I felt no life which was not patience ; did 
The thing she bade me, without heed to a thing 
Beyond it ; sate in just the chair she placed. 
With back against the window, to exclude 
The sight of the great lime-tree on the lawn. 
Which seemed to have come on purpose from the woods 
To bring the house a message, — ay, and walked 
Demurely in her carpeted low rooms, 
As if I should not, hearkening my own steps, 
Misdoubt I was alive. I read her books, 
Was civil to her cousin, Romney Leigh ; 
Gave ear to her vicar, tea to her visitors, 
And heard them whisper, when I changed a cup 
(I blushed for joy at that), — " The Italian child, 
For all her blue eyes and her quiet ways. 
Thrives ill in England. She is paler yet 
Than when we came the last time ; she will die." 

" Will die." My Cousin Romney Leigh blushed, too. 

With sudden anger, and approaching me. 

Said low between his teeth, " You're wicked now ! 

You wish to die and leave the world a-dusk 

For others, with your naughty light blown out ? " 

I looked into his face defyingly. 

He might have known, that, being what I was, 

'Twas natural to hke to get away 

As far as dead folk can ; and then, indeed. 

Some people make no trouble when they die. 



AURORA LEIGH. 21 



He turned and went abruptly, slammed the door, 
And shut his dog out. 

Romney, Romney Leigh. 
I have not named my cousin hitherto, 
And yet I used him as a sort of friend : 
My elder by four years, but cold and shy 
And absent . . . tender, when he thought of it, 
Which scarcely was imperative, grave betimes, 
As well as early master of Leigh Hall, 
Whereof the nightmare sate upon his youth 
Repressing all its seasonable delights, 
And agonizing with a ghastly sense 
Of universal hideous want and wrong 
To incriminate possession. When he came 
From college to the country-, very oft 
He crossed the hill on visits to my aunt, 
With gifts of blue grapes from the hot-houses, 
A book in one hand, — mere statistics (if 
I chanced to lift the cover), count of all 
The goats whose beards grow sprouting down toward hell 
Against God's separative judgment-hour. 
And she, — she almost loved him ; even allowed 
That sometimes he should seem to sigh my way : 
It made him easier to be pitiful. 
And sighing was his gift. So, undisturbed 
At whiles, she let him shut my music up, 
And push my needles down, and lead me out 
To see in that south angle of the house 
The figs grow black as if by a Tuscan rock, 
On some light pretext. She would turn her head 
At other moments, go to fetch a thing. 
And leave me breath enough to speak with him, 
For his sake : it was simple. 

Sometimes, too, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



He would have saved me utterly, it seemed, 
He stood and looked so. 

Once he stood so near 
He dropped a sudden hand upon my head 
Bent down on woman's work, as soft as rain ; 
But then I rose and shook it off as fire, — 
The stranger's touch that took my father's place. 
Yet dared seem soft. , 

I used him for a friend 
Before I ever knew him for a friend. 
'Twas better, 'twas worse also, afterward : 
We came so close, we saw our differences 
Too intimately. Always Romney Leigh 
Was looking for the worms, I for the gods. 
A godlike nature his ; the gods look down, 
Incurious of themselves ; and certainly 
'Tis well I should remember, how those days, 
I was a worm, too, and he looked on me. 

A little by his act, perhaps, yet more 

By something in me, surely not my will, 

I did not die ; but slowly, as one in swoon. 

To whom life creeps back in the form of death. 

With a sense of separation, a blind pain 

Of blank obstruction, and a roar i' the ears 

Of visionary chariots which retreat 

As earth grows clearer . . . slowly, by degrees, 

I woke, rose up . . . where was I ? in the world ; 

For uses therefore I must count worth while. 

I had a little chamber in the house, 

As green as any privet-hedge a bird 

Might choose to build in, though the nest itself 

Could show but dead-brown sticks and straws. The walls 



AURORA LEIGH. 23 

Were green ; the carpet was pure green ; the straight 

Small bed was curtained greenly ; and the folds 

Hung green about the window, which let in 

The outdoor world with all its greenery. 

You could not push your head out, and escape 

A dash of dawn-dew from the honeysuckle, 

But so you were baptized into the grace 

And privilege of seeing. . . . 

First the lime 
(I had enough there of the lime, be sure : 
My morning- dream was often hummed away 
By the bees in it) ; past the lime the lawn. 
Which, after sweeping broadly round the house, 
Went trickling through the shrubberies in a stream 
Of tender turf, and wore and lost itself 
Among the acacias, over which you saw 
The irregular line of elms by the deep lane 
Which stopped the grounds, and dammed the overflow 
Of arbutus and laurel. Out of sight 
The lane was ; sunk so deep, no foreign tramp. 
Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales, 
Could guess if lady's hall or tenant's lodge 
Dispensed such odors, though his stick, well crooked. 
Might reach the lowest trail of blossoming brier 
Which dipped upon the wall. Behind the elms. 
And through their tops, you saw the folded hills 
Striped up and down with hedges (burly oaks 
Projecting from the line to show themselves). 
Through which my Cousin Romney's chimneys smoked. 
As still as when a silent mouth in frost 
Breathes, showing where the woodlands hid Leigh Hall ; 
While, fiar above, a jut of table-land, 
A promontory without water, stretched. 
You could not catch it if the days were thick, 



24 AURORA LEIGH. 

Or took it for a cloud ; but, otherwise, 

The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve, 

And use it for an anvil till he had filled 

The shelves of heaven with burning thunderbolts. 

Protesting against night and darkness ; then. 

When all his setting trouble was resolved 

To a trance of passive g\ory, you might see 

In apparition on the golden sky, 

(Alas, my Giotto's background !) the sheep run 

Along the fine clear outline, small as mice 

That run along a witch's scarlet thread. 

Not a grand nature ; not my chestnut woods 
Of Vallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs 
To the precipices ; not my headlong leaps 
Of waters, that cry out for joy or fear 
In leaping through the palpitating pines, 
Like a white soul tossed out to eternity 
With thrills of time upon it ; not, indeed, 
My multitudinous mountains, sitting in 
The magic circle, with the mutual touch 
Electric, panting from their full, deep hearts 
Beneath the influent heavens, and waiting for 
Communion and commission. Italy 
Is one thing, England one. 

On English ground 
You understand the letter, — ere the fall 
How Adam lived in a garden. All the fields 
Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like ; 
The hills are crumpled plains, the plains parterres ; 
The trees round, woolly, ready to be clipped ; 
And if you seek for any wilderness. 
You find at best a park. A nature tamed. 
And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl, 



AURORA LEIQH. 25 

Which does not awe you with its claws and beak, 
Nor tempt you to an eyry too high up, 
But which in cackUng sets you thinking of 
Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the pause 
Of finer meditation. 

Rather say, 
A sweet, familiar nature, stealing in 
As a dog might, or child, to touch your hand, 
Or pluck your gown, and humbly mind you so 
Of presence and affection, excellent 
For inner uses, from the things without. 

I could not be unthankful, I who was 

Entreated thus, and holpen. In the room 

I speak of, ere the house was well awake. 

And also after it was well asleep, 

I sate alone, and drew the blessing in 

Of all that nature. With a gradual step, 

A stir among the leaves, a breath, a ray. 

It came in softly, while the angels made 

A place for it beside me. The moon came. 

And swept my chamber clean of foohsh thoughts, 

The sun came, saying, " Shall I lift this light 

Against the lime-tree, and you will not look } 

I make the birds sing ; listen ! — but for you, 

God never hears your voice, excepting when 

You lie upon the bed at nights, and weep." 

Then something moved me. Then I wakened up, 

More slowly than I verily write now ; 

But wholly, at last, I wakened, opened wide 

The window and my soul, and let the airs 

And outdoor sights sweep gradual gospels in, 

Regenerating what I was. O Life ! 



26 AURORA LEIGH. 



How oft we throw it off, and think, " Enough, 

Enough of life in so much ! — here's a cause 

For rupture ; herein we must break with Life, 

Or be ourselves unworthy ; here we are wronged, 

Maimed, spoiled for aspiration ; farewell. Life ! " 

And so, as fro ward babes, we hide our eyes 

And think all ended. Then Life calls to us 

In some transformed, apocalyptic voice. 

Above us, or below us, or around ; 

Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's, 

Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed 

To own our compensations than our griefs ; 

Still Life's voice ; still we make our peace with Life. 

And I, so young then, was not sullen. Soon 
I used to get up early just to sit 
And watch the morning quicken in the gray, 
And hear the silence open like a flower. 
Leaf after leaf, and stroke with listless hand 
The woodbine through the window, till at last 
I came to do it with a sort of love, 
At foolish unaware : whereat I smiled 
A melancholy smile, to catch myself 
Smiling for joy. 

' Capacity for joy 
Admits temptation.! It seemed, next, worth while 
To dodge the sharp sword set against my life. 
To slip down stairs through all the sleepy house, 
As mute as any dream there, and escape, 
As a soul from the body, out of doors, 
Glide through the shrubberies, drop into the lane, 
And wander on the hills an hour or two. 
Then back again, before the house should stir. 



AURORA LEIGH. 27 

Or else I sate on in my chamber green, 

And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed 

My prayers without the vicar ; read my books 

Without considering whether they were fit 

To do me good. Mark there. We get no goodi 

By being ungenerous, even to a book. 

And calculating profits, — so much help 

By so much reading. It is rather when 

We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge 

Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,/ 

Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth, — ' 

'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 

I read much. What my father taught before 

From many a volume, love re-emphasized 

Upon the self-same pages : Theophrast 

Grew tender with the memory of his eyes, 

And ^lian made mine wet. The trick of Greek 

And Latin he had taught me, as he would 

Have taught me wrestling, or the game of fives. 

If such he had known, — most like a shipwrecked man, 

Who heaps his single platter with goats' cheese 

And scarlet berries ; or like any man 

Who loves but one, and so gives all at once, 

Becaus*- he has it, rather than because 

He counts it worthy. Thus my father gave ; 

And thus, as did the women formerly 

By young Achilles, when they pinned a veil 

Across the boy's audacious front, and swept 

With tuneful laughs the silver-fretted rocks, 

He wrapt his little daughter in his large 

Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no. 

But after I had read for memory 

I read for hope. The path my father's foot 



28 AURORA LEIGH. 

Had trod me out (which suddenly broke off 
What time he dropped the wallet of the flesh 
And passed) alone I carried on, and set 
My child-heart 'gainst the thorny underwood, 
To reach the grassy shelter of the trees. 
Ah ! babe i' the wood, without a brother-babe ! 
My own self-pity, like the redbreast bird, 
Flies back to cover all that past with leaves. 

Sublimest danger, over which none weeps. 

When any young wayfaring soul goes forth • 

Alone, unconscious of the perilous road. 

The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes. 

To thrust his own way, he an alien, through 

The world of books ! Ah, you ! — you think it fine, 

You clap hands — "A fair day ! " — you cheer him on. 

As if the worst could happen were to rest 

Too long beside a fountain. Yet behold. 

Behold ! — the world of books is still the world, 

And worldlings in it are less merciful 

And more puissant. For the wicked there 

Are winged like angels ; every knife that strikes 

Is edged from elemental fire to assail 

A spiritual life ; the beautiful seems right 

By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong 

Because of weakness ; power is justified. 

Though armed against St. Michael ; many a crown 

Covers bald foreheads. In the book-world, true. 

There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings, 

That shake the ashes of the grave aside 

From their calm locks, and, undiscomfited. 

Look steadfast truths against Time's changing mask. 

True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ; 

True, many a seer pulls down the flaming heavens 



AURORA LEIGH. 29 

Upon his own head in strong martyrdom 

In order to light men a moment's space. 

But stay ! Who judges ? Who distinguishes 

'Twixt Saul and Nahash justly, at first sight, 

And leaves Kmg Saul precisely at the sin, 

To serve King David ? Who discerns at once 

The sound of the trumpets, when the trumpets blow 

For Alaric as well as Charlemagne ? 

Who judges wizards, and can tell true seers 

From conjurors ? The child, there ? Would you leave 

That child to wander in a battle-field, 

And push his innocent smile against the guns ? 

Or even in a catacomb, his torch 

Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all 

The dark a-mutter round him ? not a child. 

I read books bad and good, — some bad and good 
At once (good aims not always make good books : 
Well-tempered spades turn up ill-smelling soils 
In digging vineyards even) ; books that prove 
God's being so definitely, that man's doubt 
Grows self-defined the other side the line, 
Made atheist by suggestion ; moral books. 
Exasperating to license ; genial books. 
Discounting from the human dignity ; 
And merry books, which set you weeping when 
The sun shines ; ay, and melancholy books. 
Which make you laugh that any one should weep 
In this disjointed life for one wrong more. 

The world of books is still the world, I write ; 
And both worlds have God's providence, thank God, 
To keep and hearten. With some struggle, indeed, 
Among the breakers, some hard swimming through 



30 AURORA LEIGH. 

The deeps, I lost breath in my soul sometimes, 
And cried, " God save me, if there's any God ! " 
But, even so, God saved me : and, being dashed 
From error on to error, every turn 
Still brought me nearer to the central truth, 

I thought so. All this anguish in the thick 

Of men's opinions . . . press and counterpress. 

Now up, now down, now underfoot, and now 

Emergent ... all the best of it, perhaps. 

But throws you back upon a noble trust 

And use of your own instinct, — merely proves 

Pure reason stronger than bare inference 

At strongest. Try it, — fix against heaven's wall 

The scaling-ladders of school logic, mount 

Step by step ! — sight goes faster ; that still ray 

Which strikes out from you, how, you cannot tell. 

And why, you know not, (did you eliminate. 

That such as you indeed should analyze ?) 

Goes straight and fast as light, and high as God. 

The cygnet finds the water ; but the man 
Is born in ignorance of his element. 
And feels out, blind at first, disorganized 
By sin i' the blood, his spirit-insight dulled 
And crossed by his sensations. Presently 
He feels it quicken in the dark sometimes, 
When, mark, be reverent, be obedient, 
For such dumb motions of imperfect life 
Are oracles of vital Deity, 
Attesting the Hereafter. Let who says 
" The soul's a clean white paper," rather say, 
A palimpsest, a prophet's holograph. 
Defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's, — 



AURORA LEIGH. 31 



The apocalypse, by a Longus ! poring on 
Which obscene text, we may discern, perhaps, 
Some fair, fine trace of what was written once. 
Some upstroke of an alpha and omega 
Expressing the old scripture. 

Books, books, books ! 
I had found the secret of a garret room, 
Piled high with cases in my father's name. 
Piled high, packed large, where, creeping in and out 
Among the giant fossils of my past, 
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs 
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there 
At this or that box, pulling through the gap 
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy. 
The first book first. And how I felt it beat 
Under my pillow in the morning's dark, 
An hour before the sun would let me read ! 
My books ! At last, because the time was ripe, 
I chanced upon the poets. 

As the earth 
Plunges in fury, when the internal fires 
Have reached and pricked her heart, and throwing flat 
The marts and temples, the triumphal gates 
And towers of observation, clears herself 
To elemental freedom — thus my soul. 
At poetry's divine first finger-touch. 
Let go conventions, and sprang up surprised. 
Convicted of the great eternities 
Before two worlds. 

What's this, Aurora Leigh, 
You write so of the poets, and not laugh ? 
Those virtuous liars, dreamers after dark, 
Exaggerators of the sun and moon, 
And soothsayers in a tea-cup ? 



32 AURORA LEIGH. 

I write so 
Of the only truth-tellers now left to God, 
The only speakers of essential truth, 
Opposed to relative, comparative, 
And temporal truths ; the only holders by 
His sun-skirts, through conventional gray glooms ; 
The only teachers who instruct mankind. 
From just a shadow on a charnel-wall, 
To find man's veritable stature out 
Erect, sublime, — the measure of a man ; 
And that's the measure of an angel, says 
The apostle. Ay, and while your common men 
Lay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine, 
And dust the flaunty carpets of the world 
For kings to walk on, or our president. 
The poet suddenly will catch them up 
With his voice like a thunder, — " This is soul. 
This is life, this word is being said in heaven, 
Here's God down on us ! what are you about ? " 
How all those workers start amid their work. 
Look round, look up, and feel, a moment's space. 
That carpet-dusting, though a pretty trade, 
Is not the imperative labor, after all ! 

My own best poets, am I one with you, 

That thus I love you, — or but one through love ? 

Does all this smell of thyme about my feet 

Conclude my visit to your holy hill 

In personal presence, or but testify 

The rustling of your vesture through my dreams 

With influent odors ? When my joy and pain, 

My thought and aspiration, like the stops 

Of pipe or flute, are absolutely dumb. 

Unless melodious, do you play on me, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



My pipers ? — and if, sooth, you did not blow, 
Would no sound come ? or is the music mine, 
As a man's voice or breath is called his own. 
Inbreathed by the Life-breather ? There's a doubt 
For cloudy seasons ! 

But the sun was high 
When first I felt my pulses set themselves 
For concord ; when the rhythmic turbulence 
Of blood and brain swept outward upon words, 
As wind upon the alders, blanching them 
By turning up their under-natures till 
They trembled in dilation. O delight 
And triumph of the poet, who would say, 
A man's mere "yes," a woman's common "no," 
A little human hope of that or this. 
And says the word so that it burns you through 
With a special revelation, shakes the heart 
Of all the men and women in the world. 
As if one came back from the dead, and spoke. 
With eyes too happy, a familiar thing 
Become divine i' the utterance ! while for him 
The poet, speaker, he expands with joy ; 
The palpitating angel in his flesh 
Thrills inly with consenting fellowship 
To those innumerous spirits who sun themselves 
Outside of time. 

O life ! O poetry, 
— Which means life in life ! cognizant of life 
Beyond this blood-beat, passionate for truth 
Beyond these senses — poetry, my life, 
My eagle, with both grappling feet still hot 
From Zeus's thunder, who hast ravished me 
Away from all the shepherds, sheep and dogs, 
And set me in the Olympian roar and round 



34 AURORA LEIGH. 



Of luminous faces for a cup-bearer, 

To keep the mouths of all the godheads moist 

For everlasting laughters — I myself 

Half drunk across the beaker with their eyes ! 

How those gods look ! 

Enough so, Ganymede, 
We shall not bear above a round or two. 
We drop the golden cup at Here's foot. 
And swoon back to the earth, and find ourselves 
Face down among the pine-cones, cold with dew, 
While the dogs bark, and many a shepherd scoffs, 
" What's now come to the youth ? " Such ups and downs 
Have poets. 

Am I such indeed ? The name 
Is royal, and to sign it like a queen 
Is what I dare not, — though some royal blood 
Would seem to tingle in me now and then, 
With sense of power and ache, — with imposthumes 
And manias usual to the race. Howbeit 
I dare not ; 'tis too easy to go mad 
And ape a Bourbon in a crown of straws ; 
The thing's too common. 

Many fervent souls 
Strike rhyme on rhyme, who would strike steel on steel, 
If steel had offered, in a restless heat 
Of doing something. Many tender souls 
Have strung their losses on" a rhyming thread. 
As children, cowslips : the more pains they take, 
The w^ork more withers. Young men, ay, and maids, 
Too often sow their wild oats in tame verse. 
Before they sit down under their own vin^. 
And live for use. Alas ! near all the birds 
Will sing at dawn, and yet we do not take 
The chaffering swallow for the holy lark. 



A URORA LEIGH. 3 5 

In those days, though, I never analyzed, 
Not even myself. Analysis comes late. 
You catch a sight of Nature earliest 
In full front sun-face, and your eyelids wink 
And drop before the wonder oft : you miss 
The form, through seeing the light. I lived those days, 
And wrote because I lived —r unlicensed else; 
XMy heart beat in my brain. ^Life's violent flood 
Abolished bounds ; and which my neighbor's field. 
Which mine, what mattered ? It is thus in youth. 
We play at leap-frog over the god Term ; 
The love within us and the love without 
Are mixed, confounded : if we are loved, or love, 
We scarce distinguish. Thus with other power ; 
Being acted on and acting seem the same. 
In that first onrush of life's chariot-wheels, 
We know not if the forests move, or we. 

And so, like most young poets, in a flush 

Of individual life I poured myself 

Along the veins of others, and achieved 

Mere lifeless imitations of live verse, 

And made the living answer for the dead. 

Profaning nature. " Touch not, do not taste. 

Nor handle," — we're too legal, who write young : 

We beat the phorminx till we hurt our thumbs, 

As if still ignorant of counterpoint ; 

We call the Muse, — " O Muse, benignant Muse ! " — 

As if we had seen her purple-braided head, 

With the eyes in it, start between the boughs 

As often as a stag's. What make-believe, 

With so much earnest ! what effete results 

From virile efforts ! what cold wire-drawn odes. 

From such white heats ! — bucolics, where the cows 



36 AURORA LEIGH. 

Would scare the writer if they splashed the mud 
In lashing off the flies ; didactics, driven 
Against the heels of what the master said ; 
And counterfeiting epics, shrill with trumps 
A babe might blow between two straining cheeks 
Of bubbled rose, to make his mother laugh ; 
And elegiac griefs, and songs of love. 
Like cast-off nosegays picked up on the road, 
The worse for being warm : all these things, writ 
On happy mornings, with a morning heart. 
That leaps for love, is active for resolve, 
Weak for art only. Oft the ancient forms 
Will thrill, indeed, in carrying the young blood. 
The wine-skins, now and then a little warped. 
Will crack even, as the new wine gurgles in. 
Spare the old bottles ! Spill not the new wine. 

By Keats's soul, the man who never stepped 
In gradual progress like another man. 
But, turning grandly on his central self, 
Ensphered himself in twenty perfect years, 
And died, not young (the life of a long life 
Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear 
Upon the world's cold cheek to make it burn 
Forever), — by that strong excepted soul 
I count it strange and hard to understand 
That nearly all young poets should write old ; 
That Pope was sexagenary at sixteen. 
And beardless Byron academical, 
And so with others. It may be, perhaps. 
Such have not settled long and deep enough 
In trance to attain to clairvoyance ; and still 
The memory mixes with the vision, spoils, 
And works it turbid. 



AURORA LEIGH. 37 



Or perhaps, again, 
In order to discover the Muse-Sphinx, 
The melancholy desert must sweep round, 
Behind you as before. 

For me, I wrote 
False poems, like the rest, and thought them true. 
Because myself was true in writing them 
I, peradventure, have writ true ones since 
With less complacence. 

But I could not hide 
My quickening inner life from those at watch. 
They saw a light at a window now and then 
They had not set there : who had set it there ? 
My father's sister started when she caught 
My soul agaze in my eyes. She could not say 
I had no business with a sort of soul ; 
But plainly she objected, and demurred 
That souls were dangerous things to carry straight 
Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world. 
She said sometimes, " Aurora, have you done 
Your task this morning ? have you read that book ? 
And are you ready for the crochet here ? " 
As if she said, " I know there's something wrong ; 
I know I have not ground you down enough 
To flatten and bake you to a wholesome crust, 
For household uses and proprieties. 
Before the rain has got into my barn. 
And set the grains a-sprouting. What, you're green 
Whh outdoor impudence ? you almost grow ? " 
To which I answered, " Would she hear my task. 
And verify my abstract of the book ? 
Or should 1 sit down to the crochet-work ? 
Was such her pleasure ? " Then I sate and teased 
The patient needle till it spilt the thread. 



38 AURORA LEIGH. 

Which oozed off from it in meandering lace 
From hour to hour. I was not therefore sad ; 
My soul was singing at a work apart, 
Behind the wall of sense, as safe from harm 
As sings the lark when sucked up out of sight 
In vortices of glory and blue air. 

And so, through forced work and spontaneous work 

The inner life informed the outer life, 

Reduced the irregular blood to a settled rhythm. 

Made cool the forehead with fresh sprinkling dreams, 

And rounding to the spheric soul the thin, 

Pined body, struck a color up the cheeks, 

Though somewhat faint. I clinched my brows across 

My blue eyes, greatening in the looking-glass. 

And said, " We'll live, Aurora, we'll be strong. 

The dogs are on us ; but we will not die." 

Whoever lives true life will love true love. 
I learnt to love that England. Very oft, 
Before the day was born, or otherwise 
Through secret windings of the afternoons, 
I threw my hunters off, and plunged myself 
Among the deep hills, as a hunted stag 
Will take the waters, shivering with the fear 
And passion of the course. And when at last 
Escaped, so many a green slope built on slope 
Betwixt me and the enemy's house behind, 
I dared to rest, or wander in a rest 
Made sweeter for the step upon the grass, 
And view the ground's most gentle dimplement 
(As if God's finger touched, but did not press, 
In making England) , such an up-and-down 
Of verdure, nothing too much up or down. 



AURORA LEIGH. 39 

A ripple of land ; such little hills the sky 

Can stoop to tenderly, and the wheat-fields climb ; 

Such nooks of valleys lined with orchises, 

Fed full of noises by invisible streams, 

And open pastures where you scarcely tell 

White daisies from white dew ; at intervals 

The mythic oaks and elm-trees standing out 

Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade, — 

I thought my father's land was worthy too 

Of being my Shakspeare's. 

Very oft alone, 
Unlicensed ; not unfrequently with leave 
To walk the third with Romney and his friend 
The rising painter, Vincent Carrington, 
Whom men judge hardly as bee-bonneted, 
Because he holds that, paint a body well. 
You paint a soul by implication, like 
The grand first Master. Pleasant walks ; for if 
He said, " When I was last in Italy," 
It sounded as an instrument that's played 
Too far off for the tune, and yet it's fine 
To listen. 

Ofter we walked only two, 
If Cousin Romney pleased to walk with me. 
We read, or talked, or quarrelled, as it chanced. 
We were not lovers, nor even friends well matched : 
Say, rather, scholars upon different tracks, 
And thinkers disagreed, — he over-full 
Of what is, and I, haply, overbold 
For what might be. 

But then the thrushes sang, 
And shook my pulses and the elm's new leaves. 
At which I turned, and held my finger up, 
And bade him mark, that howsoe'er the world 



40 AURORA LEIGH. 



Went ill, as he related, certainly 

The thrushes still sang in it. At the word 

His brow would soften ; and he bore with me 

In melancholy patience, not unkind, 

While, breaking into voluble ecstacy, 

I flattered all the beauteous country round, 

As poets use, — the skies, the clouds, the fields. 

The happy violets hiding from the roads, 

The primroses run down to, carrying gold ; 

The tangled hedge-rows, where the cows push out 

Impatient horns and tolerant churning mouths 

'Twixt dripping ash-boughs : hedge-rows all alive 

With birds and gnats, and large white butterflies 

Which look as if the Mayflower had caught life. 

And palpitated forth upon the wind ; 

Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist ; 

Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills ; 

And cattle grazing in the watered vales : 

And cottage-chimneys smoking from the woods ; 

And cottage-gardens smelling everywhere, 

Confused with smell of orchards. " See ! " I said, 

" And see ! is not God with us on the earth ? 

And shall we put him down by aught we do ? 

Who says there's nothing for the poor and vile 

Save poverty and wickedness ? Behold ! " 

And ankle-deep in English grass I leaped. 

And clapped my hands, and called all very fair. 

In the beginning, when God called all good, 
Even then, was evil near us, it is writ ; 
But we indeed who call things good and fair, 
The evil is upon us while we speak : 
Deliver us from evil, let us pray. 



AURORA LEIGH. 4I 

SECOND BOOK. 

Times followed one another. Came a morn 

I stood upon the brink of twenty years, 

And looked before and after, as I stood 

Woman and artist, either incomplete, 

Both credulous of completion. There I held 

The whole creation in my little cup, 

And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank 

" Good health to you and me, sweet neighbor mine. 

And all these peoples." 

I was glad that day ; 
The June was in me, with its multitudes 
Of nightingales all singing in the dark, 
And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split. 
I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God, 
So glad, I could not choose be very wise, 
And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull 
My childhood backward in a childish jest 
To see the face oft once more, and farewell 
In which fantastic mood. I bounded forth 
At early morning, would not wait so long 
As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings. 
But, brushing a green trail across the lawn 
With my gown in the dew, took will and way 
Among the acacias of the shrubberies, 
To fly my fancies in the open air, 
And keep my birthday till my aunt awoke 
To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on 
As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves, 
" The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned 
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone ; 
And so with me it must be, unless I prove 
Unworthy oi the grand adversity ; 



42 AURORA LEIGH. 



And certainly I would not fail so much. 
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day 
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it 
Before my brows be numbed as Dante's own 
To all the tender pricking of such leaves ? 
Such leaves ! what leaves ? " 

I pulled the branches down 
To choose from. 

" Not the bay ! I choose no bay, 
(The fates deny us if we are overbold) 
Nor myrtle, which means chiefly love ; and love 
Is something awful, which one dares not touch 
So early o' mornings. This verbena strains 
The point of passionate fragrance ; and hard by 
This guelder-rose, at far too slight a beck 
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples. 
Ah, there's my choice, that ivy on the wall. 
That headlong ivy ! not a leaf will grow 
But thinking of a wreath. Large leaves, smooth leaves, 
Serrated like my vines, and half as green. 
I like such ivy, bold to leap a height 
'Twas strong to climb ; as good to grow on graves 
As twist about a thyrsus ; pretty, too, 
(And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb." 

Thus speaking to myself, half singing it, 
Because some thoughts are fashioned like a bell, 
To ring with once being touched, I drew a wreath 
Drenched, blinding me with dew, across my brow. 
And, fastening it behind so, turning, faced 
. . . My public — Cousin Romney — with a mouth 
Twice graver than his eyes. 

I stood there flxed, 
My arms up, like the caryatid, sole 




" I stood there fixed, 
My arms ud. like the caryatid." - Page 42. 



AURORA LEIGH. 43 



Of some abolished temple, helplessly 
Persistent in a gesture which derides 
A former purpose. Yet my blush was flame, 
As if from flax, not stone. 

•'Aurora Leigh, 
The earliest of Auroras ! " 

Hand stretched out 
I clasped, as shipwrecked men will clasp a hand. 
Indifferent to the sort of palm. The tide 
Had caught me at my pastime, writing down 
My foolish name too near upon the sea. 
Which drowned me with a blush as foolish. " You, 
My cousin ! " 

The smile died out in his eyes, 
And dropped upon his lips, a cold dead w^eight, 
For just a moment, " Here's a book I found ; 
No name writ on it — poems, by the form ; 
Some Greek upon the margin ; lady's Greek 
Without the accents. Read it ? Not a word. 
I saw at once the thing had witchcraft in't, 
Whereof the reading calls up dangerous spirits : 
I rather bring it to the witch." 

" My book. 

You found it " . . . 

" In the hollow by the stream 
That beech leans down into, of which you said 
The Oread in it has a Naiad's heart. 
And pines for waters." 

"Thank you." 

" Thanks to you, 
My cousin, that I have seen you not too much 
Witch, scholar, poet, dreamer, and the rest, 
To be a woman also." 

With a glance 



44 AURORA LEIGH. 



The smile rose in his eyes again, and touched 
The ivy on my forehead, light as air. 
I answered gravely, " Poets needs must be, 
Or men or women, more's the pity." 

"Ah, 
But men, and still less women, happily. 
Scarce need be poets. Keep to the green wreath, 
Since even dreaming of the stone and bronze 
Brings headaches, pretty cousin, and defiles 
The clean white morning dresses." 

" So you judge, 
Because I love the beautiful I must 
Love pleasure chiefly, and be overcharged 
For ease and whiteness ! well, you know the world, 
And only miss your cousin ; 'tis not much. 
But learn this : I would rather take my part 
With God's dead, who afford to walk in white, 
Yet spread his glory, than keep quiet here, 
And gather up my feet from even a step, 
For fear to soil my gown in so much dust. 
I choose to walk at all risks. Here, if heads 
That hold a rhythmic thought must ache perforce, 
For my part I choose headaches, — and to-day's my birthday." 

" Dear Aurora, choose instead 
To cure them. You have balsams." 

" I perceive. 
The headache is too noble for my sex. 
You think the heartache would sound decenter. 
Since that's the woman's special, proper ache, 
And altogether tolerable, except 
To a woman." 

Saying which, I loosed my wreath, 
And swinging it beside me as I walked, 
Half petulant, half playful, as we walked, 



AURORA LEIGH. 45 

I sent a sidelong look to find his thought, 

As falcon set on falconer's finger may, 

With sidelong head, and startled, braving eye, 

Which means, " You'll see, you'll see ! I'll soon take flighto 

You shall not hinder." He, as shaking out 

His hand, and answering, " Fly, then," did not speak. 

Except by such a gesture. Silently 

We paced, until, just coming into sight 

Of the house-windows, he abruptly caught 

At one end of the swinging wreath, and said, 

" Aurora ! " There I stopped short, breath and all. 

" Aurora, let's be serious, and throw by 

This game of head and heart. Life means, be sure, 

Both heart and head, — both active, both complete, 

And both in earnest. Men and women make 

The world, as head and heart make human life. 

Work, man, work, woman, since there's work to do 

In this beleaguered earth for head and heart ; 

And thought can never do the work of love : 

But work for ends, I mean for uses, not 

For such sleek fringes (do you call them ends. 

Still less God's glory ?) as we sew ourselves 

Upon the velvet of those baldaquins 

Held 'twixt us and the sun. That book of yours 

I have not read a page of ; but I toss 

A rose up — it falls calyx down, you see ! 

The chances are, that being a woman, young 

And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes. 

You write as well . . . and ill . . . upon the whole 

As other women. If as well, what then .? 

If even a little better . . . still, what then 1 

We want the best in art now, or no art. 

The time is done for facile settings-up 



46 AURORA LEIGH. 

Of minnow-gods, nymphs here, and tritons there : 

The polytheists have gone out in God, 

That unity of bests. No best, no God ! 

And so with art, we say. Give art's divine, 

Direct, indubitable, real as grief, 

Or, leave us to the grief, we grow ourselves 

Divine by overcoming with mere hope 

And most prosaic patience. You, you are young 

As Eve, with nature's daybreak on her face ; 

But this same world you are come to, dearest coz, 

Has done with keeping birthdays, saves her wreaths 

To hang upon her ruins, and forgets 

To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back 

Those savage, hungry dogs that hunt her down 

To the empty grave of Christ. The world's hard pressed 

The sweat of labor in the early curse 

Has (turning acrid in six thousand years) 

Become the sweat of torture. Who has time, 

An hour's time . . . think ! — to sit upon a bank. 

And hear the cymbal tinkle in white hands .? 

When Egypt's slain, I say, let Miriam sing ! — 

Before, — where's Moses ? " 

'' Ah, exactly that, 
Where's Moses ? Is a Moses to be found ? 
You'll seek him vainly in the bulrushes, 
While I in vain touch cymbals. Yet concede. 
Such sounding brass has done some actual good 
(The application in a woman's hand. 
If that were credible, being scarcely spoilt), 
In colonizing beehives." 

" There it is ! 
You play beside a deathbed like a child, 
Yet measure to yourself a prophet's place 
To teach the living. None of all these things 



AURORA LEIGH. 47 

Can women understand. You generalize, 

Oh, nothing, — not even grief ! Your quick-breathed hearts 

So sympathetic to the personal pang. 

Close on each separate knife-stroke, yielding up 

A whole life at each wound, incapable 

Of deepening, widening a large lap of life 

To hold the world-full woe. / The human race 

To you means such a child, or such a man, 

You saw one morning waiting in the cold 

Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather up 

A few such cases, and when strong sometimes 

Will write of factories and of slaves, as if 

Your father were a negro and your son 

A spinner in the mills. All's yours and you, 

All colored with your blood, or otherwise 

Just nothing to you. Why, I call you hard 

To general suffering. Here's the world half-blind 

With intellectual light, half-brutalized 

With civilization, having caught the plague 

In silks from Tarsus, shrieking east and west 

Along a thousand railroads, mad with pain. 

And sin, too ! . . . does one woman of you all 

(You who weep easily) grow pale to see 

This tiger shake his cage "i Does one of you 

Stand still from dancing, stop from stringing pearls. 

And pine and die, because of the great sum 

Of universal anguish ? Show me a tear 

Wet as Cordelia's in eyes bright as yours, 

Because the world is mad. You cannot count 

That you should weep for this account, not you ! 

You weep for what you know. A red-haired child 

Sick in a fever, if you touch him once, 

Though but so little as with a finger-tip, 

Will set you weeping ; but a million sick ... 



48 AURORA LEIGH. 

You could as soon weep for the rule-of-three 

Or compound fractions. Therefore this same world 

Uncomprehended by you, must remain 

Uninfluenced by you. Women as you are, 

Mere women, personal and passionate, 

You give us doating mothers and perfect wives, 

Sublime Madonnas and enduring saints : 

We get no Christ from you, and verily 

We shall not get a poet, in my mind." 

'' With which conclusion you conclude "... 

" But this : 
X^That you, Aurora, with the large live brow 
And steady eyelids, cannot condescend 
To play at art, as children play at swords, 
To show a pretty spirit, chiefly admired 
Because true action is impossible. 
You never can be satisfied with praise 
Which men give women when they judge a book 
Not as mere work, but as mere w oman's woi k.. 
Expressing the comparative respect, 
Which means the absolute scorn. ' Oh, excellent ! 
What grace, what facile turns, what fluent sweeps. 
What delicate discernment . . . almost thought ! 
The book does honor to the sex, we hold. 
Among our female authors we make room 
For this fair writer, and congratulate 
The country that produces in these times 
Such women, competent to ' . . . spell." ^ 

" Stop there," 
I answered, burning through his thread of talk 
With a quick flame of emotion, — " you have read 
My soul, if not my book, and argue well 
I would not condescend . . ., we will not say 



AURORA LEIGH. 49 



To such a kind of jDraise (a worthless end 
Is praise of all kinds), but to such a use 
Of holy art and golden life. I am young, 

And peradventure weak — you tell me so 

Through being a woman. And for all the rest, 
Take thanks for justice. I would rather dance 
At fairs on tight-rope, till the babies dropped 
Their gingerbread for joy, than shift the types 
For tolerable verse, intolerable 
To men wdio act and suffer. Better far 
Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means, 
Than a sublime art frivolously." 

" You 
Choose nobler work than either, O moist eyes. 
And hurrying lips, and heaving heart ! We are young, 
Aurora, you and I. The world, — look round, — 
The world we're come to late is swollen hard 
With perished generations and their sins : 
The civilizer's spade grinds horribly 
On dead men's bones, and cannot turn up soil 
That's otherwise than fetid. All success 
Proves partial failure ; all advance implies 
What's left behind ; all triumph, something crushed 
At the chariot-wheels ; all government, some wrong ; 
And rich men make the poor, who curse the rich, 
Who agonize together, rich and poor, 
Under and over, in the social spasm 
And crisis of the ages. Here's an age 
That makes its own vocation ; here we have stepped 
Across the bounds of time ; here's naught to see. 
But just the rich man and just Lazarus, 
And both in torments with a mediate gulf. 
Though not a hint of Abraham's bosom. Who, 
Being man, Aurora, can stand calmly by 



50 AURORA LEIGH. 

And view these things, and never tease his soul 
For some great cure ? No physic for this grief, 
In all the earth and heavens, too? " 

" You believe 
In God, for your part ? ay ? that He who makes 
Can make good things from ill things, best from worst, 
As men plant tulips upon dunghills when 
They wish them finest ? " 

" True. A death-heat is 
The same as life-heat, to be accurate ; 
And in all nature is no death at all, 
As men account of death, so long as God 
Stands witnessing for life perpetually. 
By being just God. That's abstract truth, I know, 
Philosophy or sympathy with God ; 
But I, I sympathize with man, not God, 
(I think I was a man for chiefly this,) 
And, when I stand beside a dying bed, 
'Tis death to me. Observe : it had not much 
Consoled the race of mastodons to know, 
Before they went to fossil, that anon 
Their place would quicken with the elephant ; 
They were not elephants, but mastodons ; 
And I, a man, as men are now, and not 
As men may be hereafter, feel with men 
In the agonizing present." 

"Is it so," 
I said, " my cousin ? Is the world so bad. 
While I hear nothing of it through trees ? 
The world was always evil, — but so bad t " 

" So bad, Aurora. Dear, my soul is gray 
With poring over the long sum of ill ; 
So much for vice, so much for discontent. 



AURORA LEIGH. 51 

So much for the necessities of power, 

So much for the connivances of fear, 

Coherent in statistical despairs 

With such a total of distracted life . . . 

To see it down in figures on a page, 

Pale, silent, clear, as God sees through the earth 

The sense of all the graves, — that's terrible 

For one who is not God, and cannot right 

The wrong he looks on. May I choose indeed 

But vow away my years, my means, my aims. 

Among the helpers, if there's any help 

In such a social strait ? The common blood 

That swings along my veins is strong enough 

To draw me to this duty." 

Then I spoke : 
" I have not stood long on the strand of life, 
And these salt waters have had scarcely time 
To creep so high up as to wet my feet ; 
I cannot judge these tides — I shall, perhaps. 
A woman's always younger than a man 
At equal years, because she is disallowed 
Maturing by the outdoor sun and air. 
And kept in long-clothes past the age to walk. 
Ah, well ! I know you men judge otherwise. 
You think a woman ripens as a peach. 
In the cheeks chiefly. Pass it to me now : 
I'm young in age, and younger still, I think, 
As a woman. But a child may say amen 
To a bishop's prayer, and feel the way it goes. 
And I, incapable to loose the knot 
Of social questions, can approve, applaud 
August compassion. Christian thoughts that shoot 
Beyond the vulgar white of personal aims. 
Accept my reverence." 



52 AURORA LEIGH. 

There he glowed on me 
With all his face and eyes. " No other help ? " 
Said he, " no more than so ? " 

"What help?" I asked. 
" You'd scorn my help, as Nature's self, you say, 
Has scorned to put her music in my mouth. 
Because a woman's. Do you now turn round 
And ask for what a woman cannot give ? " 

" For what she only can, I turn and ask," 
He answered, catching up my hands in his, 
And dropping on me from his high-eaved brow 
The full weight of his soul. " I ask for love, 
And that she can ; for life in fellowship 
Through bitter duties, that, I know, she can ; 
For wifehood — will she ? " 

" Now," I said, " may God 
Be witness 'twixt us two ! " and with the word, 
Meseemed I floated into a sudden light 
Above his stature, — " am I proved too weak 
To stand alone, yet strong enough to bear 
Such leaners on my shoulder ? poor to think, 
Yet rich enough to sympathize with thought ? 
Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can. 
Yet competent to love, like him ? " 

I paused ! 
Perhaps I darkened, as the lighthouse will 
That turns upon the sea. " It's always so. 
Any thing does for a wife." 

"Aurora, dear, 
And dearly honored," he pressed in at once 
With eager utterance, " you translate me ill. 
I do not contradict my thought of you. 
Which is most reverent, with another thought 



AURORA LEIGH. 53 



Found less so. If your sex is weak for art, 

(And I who said so did but honor you 

By using truth in courtship), it is strong 

For life and duty. Place your fecund heart 

In mine, and let us blossom for the world 

That wants love's color in the gray of time. 

My talk, meanwhile, is arid to you, ay. 

Since all my talk can only set you where 

You look down coldly on the arena heaps 

Of headless bodies, shapeless, indistinct. 

The judgment-angel scarce would find his way 

Through such a heap of generalized distress 

To the individual man with lips and eyes. 

Much less Aurora. Ah, my sweet, come down. 

And hand in hand we'll go where yours shall touch 

These victims one by one, till, one by one. 

The formless, nameless trunk of every man 

Shall seem to wear a head with hair you know. 

And every woman catch your mother's face 

To melt you into passion." 

" I am a girl," 
I answered slowly : " you do well to name 
My mother's face. Though far too early, alas ! 
God's hand did interpose 'twixt it and me, 
I know so much of love as used to shine 
In that face and another ; just so much, 
No more, indeed, at all. I have not seen 
So much love since, I pray you pardon me. 
As answers even to make a marriage with 
In this cold land of England. What you love 
Is not a woman, Romney, but a cause : 
You want a helpmate, not a mistress, sir ; 
A wife to help your ends, in her no end. 
Your cause is noble, your ends excellent ; 



54 AURORA LEIGH. 



But I, being most unworthy of these and that, 
Do otherwise conceive of love. Farewell ! " 

" Farewell, Aurora ? you reject me thus ? " 
He said. 

" Sir, you were married long ago. 
You have a wife already whom you love, — 
Your social theory. Bless you both, I say. 
For my part, I am scarcely meek enough 
To be the handmaid of a lawful spouse. 
Do I look a Hagar, think you ? " 

" So you jest." 
" Nay, so I speak in earnest," I replied. 
'• You treat of marriage too much like, at least, 
A chief apostle ; you would bear with you 
A wife ... a sister . . . shall we speak it out .-* - 
A sister of charity." 

'' Then must it be. 
Indeed, farewell ? And was I so far wrong 
In hope and in illusion, when I took 
The woman to be nobler than the man, 
Yourself the noblest woman in the use 
And comprehension of what love is, — love 
That generates the likeness of itself 
Through all heroic duties ? so far wrong 
In saying bluntly, venturing truth on love, 
' Come, human creature, love and work with me,' 
Instead of, ' Lady, thou art wondrous fair. 
And, where the Graces walk before, the Muse 
Will follow at the lightning of their eyes, 
And where the Muse walks, lovers need to creep 
Turn round and love me, or I die of love ? ' " 



With quiet indignation I broke in, 



AURORA LEIGH. 55 



" You misconceive the question like a man, 

Who sees a woman as the complement 

Of his sex merely. You forget too much 

That every creature, female as the male. 

Stands single in responsible act and thought 

As also in birth and death. Whoever says 

To a loyal woman, ' Love and work with me,' 

Will get fair answers, if the work and love, 

Being good themselves, are good for her, — the best 

She was born for. Women of a softer mood. 

Surprised by men when scarcely awake to life. 

Will sometimes only hear the first word, love, 

And catch up with it any kind of work, 

Indifferent, so that dear love go with it. 

I do not blame such women, though for love 

They pick much oakum : earth's fanatics make 

Too frequently heaven's saints. But me your work 

Is not the best for, nor your love the best. 

Nor able to commend the kind of work 

For love's sake merely. Ah ! you force me, sir. 

To be over-bold in speaking of myself : 

I, too, have my vocation, — work to do. 

The heavens and earth have set me since I changed 

My father's face for theirs, and, though your world 

Were twice as wretched as you represent, 

Most serious work, most necessary work 

As any of the economists'. Reform, 

Make trade a Christian possibility. 

And individual right no general wrong. 

Wipe out earth's furrows of the thine and mine, 

And leave one green for men to play at bowls. 

With innings for them all ! . . . what then, indeed, 

If mortals are not greater by the head 

Than any of their prosperities ? what then, 



56 AURORA LEIGH. 



Unless the artist keep up open roads 

Betwixt the seen and unseen, bursting through 

The best of your conventions with his best, 

The speakable, imaginable best 

God bids him speak, to prove what lies beyond 

Both speech and imagination ? A starved man 

Exceeds a fat beast : we'll not barter, sir, 

The beautiful for barley. And, even so, 

I hold you will not compass your poor ends 

Of barley-feeding and material ease 

Without a poet's individualism 

To work your universal. It takes a soul 

To move a body : it takes a high-souled man 

To move the masses even to a cleaner sty : 

It takes the ideal to blow a hair's-breadth off 

The dust of the actual. Ah ! your Fouriers failed, 

Because not poets enough to understand 

That life develops from wdthin. For me, 

Perhaps I am not worthy, as you say, 

Of work like this : perhaps a woman's soul 

Aspires, and not creates : yet w^e aspire. 

And yet I'll try out your perhapses, sir, 

And if I fail . . . w^hy, burn me up my straw 

Like other false works. I'll not ask for grace : 

Your scorn is better. Cousin Romney. I 

Who love my art w^ould never wish it lower 

To suit my stature. I may love my art. 

You'll grant that even a woman may love art. 

Seeing that to waste true love on anything 

Is womanly, past question." 

I retain 
The very last word w^hich I said that day, 
As you the creaking of the door, years past. 
Which let upon you such disabling news 



AURORA LEIGH. 57 



You ever after have been graver. He, *■ 

His eyes, the motions in his silent mouth, 

Were fiery points on wliich my words were caught, 

Transfixed forever in my memory 

For his sake, not their own. And yet I know 

I did not love him . . . nor he me . . . that's sure . . . 

And what I said is unrepented of, 

As truth is always. Yet ... a princely man — 

If hard to me, heroic for himself. 

He bears down on me through the slanting years. 

The stronger for the distance. If he had loved, 

Ay, loved me, with that retributive face, . . . 

I might have been a common woman now. 

And happier, less known, and less left alone. 

Perhaps a better woman, after all. 

With chubby children hanging on my neck 

To keep me low and wise. Ah me ! the vines 

That bear such fruit are proud to stoop with it. 

The palm stands upright in a realm of sand. 

And I, who spoke the truth then, stand upright, 

Still worthy of having spoken out the truth. 

By being content I spoke it, though it set 

Him there, me here. Oh, woman's vile remorse. 

To hanker after a mere name, a show, 

A supposition, a potential love ! 

Does every man who names love in our lives 

Become a power for that ? Is love's true thing 

So much best to us, that what personates love 

Is next best ? A potential love, forsooth ! 

I'm not so vile. No, no ! He cleaves, I think, 

This man, this image, chiefly for the wrong 

And shock he gave my life in finding me 

Precisely where the devil of my youth 



58 AURORA LEIGH. 

Had set me on those mountain peaks of hope, 
All glittering with the dawn-dew, all erect, 
And famished for the noon, exclaiming, while 
I looked for empire and much tribute, " Come, 
I have some worthy work for thee below. 
• Come, sweep my barns and keep my hospitals, 
And I will pay thee with a current coin 
Which men give women." 

As we spoke, the grass 
Was trod in haste beside us, and my aunt, 
With smile distorted by the sun, face, voice. 
As much at issue with the summer-day 
As if you brought a candle out of doors, — 
Broke in with, " Romney, here ! — My child, entreat 
Your cousin to the house, and have your talk. 
If girls must talk upon their birthdays. Come." 

He answered for me calmly, with pale lips 
That seemed to motion for a smile in vain. 
"The talk is ended, madam, where we stand. 
Your brother's daughter has dismissed me here ; 
And all my answer can be better said 
Beneath the trees than wrong by such a word 
Your house's hospitalities. Farewell." 

With that he vanished. I could hear his heel 
Ring bluntly in the lane as down he leapt 
The short way from us. Then a measured speech 
Withdrew me. " What means this, Aurora Leigh .? 
My brother's daughter has dismissed my guest ? " 

The lion in me felt the keeper's voice 

Through all its quivering dewlaps : I was quelled 

Before her, meekened to the child she knew : 



AURORA LEIGH. 59 



I prayed her pardon, said " I had Uttle thought 

To give dismissal to a guest of hers 

In letting go a friend of mine who came 

To take me into service as a wife, — 

No more than that, indeed." 

" No more, no more ? 
Pray Heaven," she answered, "that 1 was not mad. 
I could not mean to tell to her face 
That Romney Leigh had asked me for a wife, 
And I refused him ? " 

. " Did he ask ? " I said, 
" I think he rather stooped to take me up 
For certain uses which he found to do 
For something called a wife. He never asked." 

" What stuff ! " she answered. " Are they queens, these girls ? 
They must have mantles, stitched with twenty silks. 
Spread out upon the ground, before they'll step 
One footstep for the noblest lover born." 

" But I am born," I said with firmness, " I, 
To walk another way than his, dear aunt." 

" You walk, you walk ! A babe at thirteen months 
Will walk as well as you," she cried in haste, 
" Without a steadying finger. Why, you child, 
God help you ! you are groping in the dark. 
For all this sunlight. You suppose, perhaps, 
That you, sole offspring of an opulent man, 
Are rich, and free to choose a way to walk ? 
You think, and it's a reasonable thought, 
That I, beside, being well to do in life, 
Will leave my handful in my niece's hand 
When death shall paralyze these fingers ? Pray, 



6o AURORA LEIGH. 



Pray, child, albeit I know you love me not, 

As if you loved me, that I may not die ; 

For when I die and leave you, out you go, 

(Unless I make room for you in my grave,) 

Unhoused, unfed, my dear, poor brother's lamb, 

(Ah, heaven ! that pains) without a right to crop 

A single blade of grass beneath these trees. 

Or cast a lamb's small shadow on the lawn. 

Unfed, unfolded. Ah, my brother, here's 

The fruit you planted in your foreign loves ! 

Ay, there's the fruit he planted ! Never look 

Astonished at me with your mother's eyes. 

For it was they who set you where you are. 

An undowered orphan. Child, your father's choice 

Of that said mother disinherited 

His daughter, his and hers. Men do not think 

Of sons and daughters when they fall in love. 

So much more than of sisters : otherwise 

He would have paused to ponder what he did. 

And shrunk before that clause in the entail 

Excluding offspring by a foreign wife, 

(The clause set up a hundred years ago 

By a Leigh who wedded a French dancing-girl, 

And had his heart danced over in return ;) 

But this man shrank at nothing, never thought 

Of you, Aurora, any more than me. 

Your mother must have been a pretty thing, 

For all the coarse Italian blacks and browns, 

To make a good man, which my brother was, 

Unchary of the duties to his house ; 

But so it fell indeed. Our Cousin Vane, 

Vane Leigh, the father of this Romney, wrote, 

Directly on your birth, to Italy : 

' I ask your baby-daughter for my son, 



AURORA LEIGH. 6 1 



In whom the entail now merges by the law, 
Betroth her to us out of love, instead 
Of colder reasons, and she shall not lose 
By love or law from henceforth : ' so he wrote. 
A generous cousin was my Cousin Vane. 
Remember how he drew you to his knee 
The year you came here, just before he died, 
And hollowed out his hands to hold your cheeks. 
And wished them redder. You remember Vane ? 
And now his son, who represents our house. 
And holds the fiefs and manors in his place. 
To whom reverts my pittance when I die, 
(Except a few books and a pair of shawls) — 
The boy is generous like him, and prepared 
To carry out his kindest word and thought 
To 3''ou, Aurora. Yes, a fine young man 
Is Romney Leigh, although the sun of youth 
Has shone too straight upon his brain, I know, 
And fevered him with dreams of doing good 
To good-for-nothing people. But a wife 
Will put all right, and stroke his temples cool 
With healthy touches." . . . 

I broke in at that. 
I could not lift my heavy heart to breathe 
Till then ; but then I raised it, and it fell 
In broken words like these, — " No need to wait : 
The dream of doing good to . . . me, at least, 
Is ended, without waiting for a wife 
To cool the fever for him. We've escaped 
That danger — thank Heaven for it." 

"You," she cried, 
" Have got a fever. What, I talk and talk 
An hour long to you, I instruct you how 
You cannot eat, or drink, or stand, or sit, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Or even die, like any decent wretch 

In all this unroofed and unfurnished world, 

Without your cousin, and you still maintain 

There's room 'twixt him and you for flirting fans, 

And running knots in eyebrows ? You must have 

A pattern lover sighing on his knee ? 

You do not count enough a noble heart 

(Above book-patterns) which this very morn 

Unclosed itself in two dear fathers' names 

To embrace your orphaned life ? Fie, fie ! But stay, 

I write a word, and counteract this sin." 

She would have turned to leave me, but I clung. 

" Oh, sweet my father's sister, hear my word 

Before you write yours. Cousin Vane did well. 

And Cousin Romney well, and I well, too. 

In casting back with all my strength and will 

The good they meant me. O my God, my God ! 

God meant me good, too, when he hindered me 

From saying ' yes ' this morning. If you write 

A word, it shall be ' no.' I say no, no ! 

I tie up ' no ' upon his altar-horns 

Quite out of reach of perjury ! At least 

My soul is not a pauper : I can live 

At least my soul's life, without alms from men : 

And if it must be in heaven instead of earth, 

Let heaven look to it : I am not afraid." 

She seized my hands with both hers, strained them fast, 

And drew her probing and unscrupulous eyes 

Right through me, body and heart. " Yet, foolish sweet, 

You love this man. I've watched you when he came, 

And when he went, and when we've talked of him. 

I am not old for nothing ; I can tell 

The weather-signs of love : you love this man." 



AURORA LEIGH. ' 6^ 

Girls blush sometimes because they are alive, 
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame. 
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow : 
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats. 
And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then .'' 
Who's sorry for a gnat ... or girl ? 

I blushed. 
I feel the brand upon my forehead now 
Strike hot, sear deep, as guiltless men may feel 
The felon's iron, say, and scorn the mark 
Of what they are not. Most illogical. 
Irrational nature of our womanhood. 
That blushes one way, feels another way, 
And prays, perhaps, another. After all, 
We cannot be the equal of the male. 
Who rules his blood a little. 

For although 
I blushed, indeed, as if I loved the man, 
And her incisive smile, accrediting 
That treason of false witness in my blush, 
Did bow me downward like a swathe of grass 
Below its level that struck me, I attest 
The conscious skies and all their daily suns, 
I think I loved him not, — nor then, nor since. 
Nor ever. Do we love the schoolmaster. 
Being busy in the woods ? much less, being poor. 
The overseer of the parish ? Do we keep 
Our love to pay our debts with ? 

White and cold 
I grew next moment. As my blood recoiled 
From that imputed ignominy, I made 
My heart great with it. Then, at last, I spoke. 
Spoke veritable words, but passionate, 
Too passionate perhaps . . . ground up with sobs 



64 AURORA LEIGH. 

To shapeless endings. She let fall my hands 

And took her smile off in sedate disgust, 

As peradventure she had touched a snake, — 

A dead snake, mind ! — and, turning round, replied, 

"We'll leave Italian manners, if you please. 

1 think you had an English father, child, 

And ought to find it possible to speak 

A quiet 'yes ' or ' no,' like English girls. 

Without convulsions. In another month 

We'll take another answer, — no, or yes." 

With that, she left me in the garden-walk. 

I had a father ! yes, but long ago, — 
How long it seemed that moment ! Oh, how far, 
How far and safe, God, dost thou keep thy saints, 
When once gone from us ! We may call against 
The lighted windows of thy fair June heaven, 
Where all the souls are happy, and not one. 
Not even my father, look from work or play 
To ask, " Who is it that cries after us 
Below there, in the dusk ? " Yet formerly 
He turned his face upon me quick enough. 
If I said, " Father." Now I might 'cry loud : 
The little lark reached higher with his song 
Than I with crying. Oh, alone, alone. 
Not troubling any in heaven, nor any on earth, 
I stood there in the garden, and looked up 
The deaf blue sky that brings the roses out 
On such June mornings. 

You who keep account 
Of crisis and transition in this life. 
Set down the first time Nature says plain ' no ' 
To some ' yes ' in you, and walks over you 
In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. We all begin 



AURORA LEIGH. 05 



By singing with the birds, and running fast 
With June da3^s, hand in hand ; but once, for all, 
The birds must sing against us, and the sun 
Strike down upon us like a friend's sword caught 
By an enemy to slay us, while we read 
The dear name on the blade which bites at us ! 
That's bitter and convincing. After that. 
We seldom doubt that something in the large. 
Smooth order of creation, though no more 
Than haply a man's footstep, has gone wrong. 

Some tears fell down my cheeks, and then I smiled. 

As those smile who have no face in the world 

To smile back to them. I had lost a friend 

In Romney Leigh. The thing was sure, — a friend 

Who had looked at me most gently now and then. 

And spoken of my favorite books, "our books," 

With such a voice ! Well, voice and look were now 

More utterly shut out from me, I felt. 

Than even my father's. Romney now was turned 

To a benefactor, to a generous man. 

Who had tied himself to marry . . . me, instead 

Of such a woman, with low, timorous lids 

He lifted with a sudden word one day, 

And left, perhaps, for my sake. Ah, self-tied 

By a contract, male Iphigenia bound 

At a fatal Aulis for the winds to change, 

(But loose him, they'll not change,) he well might seem 

A little cold and dominant in love ; 

He had a right to be dogmatical. 

This poor, good Romney. Love to him was made 

A simple law-clause. If I married him, 

I should not dare to call my soul my own 

Which so he had bought and paid for : every thought 



66 AURORA LEIGH. 



And every heart-beat down there in the bill ; 
Not one found honestly deductible 
From any use that pleased him ! He might cut 
My body into coins to giv^e away 
Among his other paupers ; change my sons, 
While I stood dumb as Griseld, for black babes 
Or piteous foundlings ? might unquestioned set 
My right hand teaching in the ragged schools, 
My left hand washing in the public baths, 
What time my angel of the Ideal stretched 
Both his to me in vain. I could not claim 
The poor right of a mouse in a trap to squeal. 
And take so much as pity from myself. 

Farewell, good Romney ! if I loved you even, 

I could but ill afford to let you be 

So generous to me. Farewell, friend, since friend 

Betwixt us two, forsooth, must be a word 

So heavily overladen. And, since help 

Must come to me from those who love me not, 

Farewell, all helpers : I must help myself, 

And am alone from henceforth. Then I stooped 

And lifted the soiled garland from the earth, 

And set it on my head as bitterly 

As when the Spanish monarch crowned the bones 

Of his dead love. So be it. I preserve 

That crown still, in the drawer there ; 'twas the first 

The rest are like it, those Olympian crowns 

We run for till we lose sight of the sun 

In the dust of the racing chariots. 

After that. 
Before the evening fell, I had a note, 
Which ran, — " Aurora, sweet Chaldsean, you read 
My meaning backward, like your eastern books, 



AURORA LEIGH. 6/ 



While I am from the west, dear. Read me now 

A Uttle plamer. Did you hate me quite 

But yesterday ? I loved you for my part ; 

I love you. If I spoke untenderly 

This morning, my beloved, pardon it, 

And comprehend me that I loved you so 

I set you on the level of my soul, 

And overwashed you with the bitter brine 

Of some habitual thoughts. Henceforth, my flower, 

Be planted out of reach of any such, 

And lean the side you please with all your leaves. 

Write woman's verses, and dream woman's dreams ; 

But let me feel your perfume in my home 

To make my sabbath after working-days. 

Bloom out your youth beside me ; be my wife." 

I wrote in answer ; " We Chaldaeans discern 

Still further than we read. I know your heart. 

And shut it like the holy book it is, 

Reserved for mild-eyed saints to pore upon 

Betwixt their prayers at vespers. Well, you're right, 

I did not surely hate you yesterday ; 

And yet I do not love you enough to-day 

To wed you, Cousin Romney. Take this word, 

And let it stop you as a generous man 

From speaking further. You may tease, indeed. 

And blow about my feelings, or my leaves ; 

And here's my aunt will help you with east winds. 

And break a stalk, perhaps, tormenting me ; 

But certain flowers grow near as deep as trees ; 

And, cousin, you'll not move my root, not you, 

With all your confluent storms. Then let me gro\y 

Within my wayside hedge, and pass your way. 

This flower has never as much to say to you 



68 AURORA LEIGH. 



As the antique tomb which said to travellers, ' Pause,' 
* Siste^ viator' " Ending thus, I sighed. 

The next week passed in silence, so the next, 

And several after : Romney did not come. 

Nor my aunt chide me. I lived on and on, 

As if my heart were kept beneath a glass, 

And everybody stood, all eyes and ears. 

To see and hear it tick. I could not sit. 

Nor walk, nor take a book, nor lay it down, 

Nor sew on steadily, nor drop a stitch 

And a sigh with it, but I felt her looks 

Still cleaving to me, like the sucking asp 

To Cleopatra's breast, persistently 

Through the intermittent pantings. Being observed 

When observation is not sympathy 

Is just being tortured. If she said a word, 

A "thank you," or an "if it please you, dear," 

She meant a commination, or at best 

An exorcism against the devildom 

Which plainly held me. So with all the house. 

Susannah could not stand and twist my hair. 

Without such glancing at the looking-glass, 

To see my face there, that she missed the plait. 

And John — I never sent my plate for soup. 

Or did not send it, but the foolish John 

Resolved the problem, 'twixt his napkined thumbs. 

Of what was signified by taking soup, 

Or choosing mackerel. Neighbors who dropped in 

On morning visits, feeling a joint wrong. 

Smiled admonition, sate uneasily. 

And talked with measured, emphasized reserve. 

Of parish news, like doctors to the sick. 

When not called in, — as if, with leave to speak, 



AURORA LEIGH. 6g 

They might say something. Nay, the very dog 
Would watch me from his sun-patch on the floor, 
In alternation with the large black fly 
Not yet in reach of snapping. So I lived. 

A Roman died so, — smeared with honey, teased 
By insects, stared to torture by the noon ; 
And many patient souls 'neath English roofs 
Have died like Romans. I, in looking back, 
Wish only now I had borne the plague of all 
With meeker spirits than were rife at Rome. 

For on the sixth week the dead sea broke up. 

Dashed suddenly through beneath the heel of Him 

Who stands upon the sea and earth, and swears 

Time shall be nevermore. The clock struck nine 

That morning too ; no lark was out of tune ; 

The hidden farms among the hills breathed straight 

Their smoke toward heaven ; the lime-tree scarcely stirred 

Beneath the blue weight of the cloudless sky. 

Though still the July air came floating through 

The woodbine at my window, in and out. 

With touches of the out-door country news 

For a bending forehead. There I sate and wished 

That morning truce of God would last till eve, 

Or longer. " Sleep," I thought, " late sleepers ; sleep. 

And spare me yet the burden of your eyes." 

Then suddenly a single ghastly shriek 
Tore upward from the bottom of the house, 
Like one who wakens in a grave, and shrieks. 
The still house seemed to shriek itself alive, 
And shudder through its passages and stairs. 
With slam of doors and clash of bells. I spiang, 



70 AURORA LEIGH. 

I stood up in the middle of the room, 
And there confronted at my chamber door, 
A white face, shivering, ineffectual lips. 

" Come, come ! " they tried to utter, and I went. 
As if a ghost had drawn me at the point 
Of a fiery finger through the uneven dark, 
I went with reeling footsteps down the stair. 
Nor asked a question. 

There she sate, my aunt. 
Bolt upright in the chair beside her bed. 
Whose pillow had no dint. She had used no bed 
For that night's sleeping, yet slept well. My God ! 
The dumb derision of that gray, peaked face 
Concluded something grave against the sun, 
Which filled the chamber with its July burst, 
When Susan drew the curtains, ignorant 
Of who sate open-eyed behind her. There 
She sate ... it sate. . . . we said " she " yesterday 
And held a letter with unbroken seal, 
As Susan gave it to her hand last night. 
All night she had held it. If its news referred 
To duchies or to dunghills, not an inch 
She'd budge, 'twas obvious, for such worthless odds ; 
Nor, though the stars were suns, and overburned 
Their spheric limitations, swallowing up 
Like wax the azure spaces, could they force 
Those open eyes to wink once. What last sight 
Had left them blank and flat so, drawing out 
The faculty of vision from the roots. 
As nothing more, worth seeing, remained behind ? 

Were those the eyes that watched me, worried me } 
That dogged me up and down the hours and days, 



AURORA LEIGH. /I 



A beaten, breathless, miserable soul ? 

And did I pray, a half hour back, but so 

To escape the burden of those eyes . . . those eyes ? 

" Sleep late," I said ? 

Why now, indeed, they sleep. 
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers^ 
And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, 
A gauntlet with a gift in't. Every wish 
Is like a prayer, with God. 

I had my wish. 
To read and meditate the thing I would. 
To fashion all my life upon my thought. 
And marry, or not marry. Henceforth none 
Could disapprove me, vex me, hamper me. 
Full ground-room in this desert newly made, 
For Babylon or Balbec, when the breath. 
Now choked with sand, returns for building towns. 

The heir came over on the funeral day, 

And we two cousins met before the dead 

With two pale faces. Was it death, or life. 

That moved us? When the will was read and done. 

The official guests and witnesses withdrawn, 

We rose up, in a silence almost hard, 

And looked at one another. Then I said, 

" Farewell, my cousin." 

But he touched, just touched 
My hatstrings, tied for going (at the door 
The carriage stood to take me), and said low. 
His voice a little unsteady through his smile, 
" Siste^ viator^ 

" Is there time," I asked, 
" In these last days of railroads, to stop short, 
Like Caesar's chariot (weighing half a ton), 



72 AURORA LEIGH. 



On the Appian road, for morals ? " 

" There is tmie," 
He answered grave, " for necessary words, 
Inclusive, trust me, of no epitaph 
On man or act, my cousin. We have read 
A will which gives you all the personal goods 
And funded moneys of your aunt." 

" I thank 
Her memory for it. With three hundred pounds. 
We buy in England, even, clear standing-room 
To stand and work in. Only two hours since 
I fancied I was poor." 

"And, cousin, still 
You're richer than you fancy. The will says, 
TJwee hundred poicnds^ and aiiy other sum 
Of which the said testatrix dies possessed. 
I say she died possessed of other sums." 

" Dear Romney, need we chronicle the pence ? 
I'm richer than I thought : that's evident. 
Enough so." 

" Listen, rather. You've to do 
With business and a cousin," he resumed ; 
" And both, I fear, need patience. Here's the fact 
The other sum (there is another sum. 
Unspecified in any will which dates 
After possession, yet bequeathed as much 
And clearly as those said three hundred pounds) 
Is thirty thousand. You will have it paid 
When ? . . . where ? My duty troubles you with words." 

He struck the iron when the bar was hot : 
No wonder if my eyes sent out some sparks. 
*' Pause there ! I thank you. You are delicate 



AURORA LEIGH. 73 



In glozing gifts ; but I, who share your blood, 
Am rather made for giving, like yourself, 
Than taking like your pensioners. Farewell." 

He stopped me with a gesture of calm pride. 

" A Leigh," he said, " gives largesse, and gives love, 

But glozes never : if a Leigh could gloze, 

He would not do it, moreover, to a Leigh, 

With blood trained up along nine centuries 

To hound and hate a lie from eyes like yours, 

And now we'll make the rest as clear. Your aun 

Possessed these moneys." 

" You will make it clear, 
My cousin, as the honor of us both. 
Or one of us speaks vainly- That's not I. 
My aunt possessed this sum — inherited 
From whom and when ? Bring documents, prove dates.' 

" Why, now indeed you throw your bonnet off 
As if you had time left for a logarithm ! 
The faith's the want. Dear cousin, give me faith. 
And you shall walk this road with silken shoes, 
As clean as any lady of our house 
Supposed the proudest. Oh, I comprehend 
The whole position from your point of sight. 
I oust you from your father's halls and lands, 
And make you poor by getting rich — that's law ; 
Considering which, in common circumstance, 
You would not scruple to accept from me 
Some compensation, some sufficiency 
Of income — that were justice ; but, alas ! 
I love you — that's mere nature ; you reject 
My love — that's nature also ; and at once 
You cannot, from a suitor disallowed. 



74 AURORA LEIGH. 

A hand thrown back, as mine is, into yours. 
Receive a doit, a farthing, — not for the world ! 
That's woman's etiquette, and obviously 
Exceeds the claim of nature, law, and right, 
Unanswerable to all. I grant, you see. 
The case as you conceive it ; leave you room 
To sweep your ample skirts of womanhood 
While, standing humbly squeezed against the wall, 
I own myself excluded from being just, 
Restrained from paying indubitable debts, 
Because denied from giving you my soul. 
That's my misfortune. I submit to it 
As if, in some more reasonable age, 
'Twould not be less inevitable. Enough. 
You'll trust me, cousin, as a gentleman. 
To keep your honor, as you count it, pure. 
Your scruples (just as if I thought them wise) 
Safe and inviolate from gifts of mine." 

I answered mild but earnest : " I believe 

In no one's honor which another keeps. 

Nor man's nor woman's. As I keep, myself, 

My truth and my religion, I depute 

No father, though I had one this side death. 

Nor brother, though I had twenty, much less you. 

Though twice my cousin, and once Romney Leigh, 

To keep my honor pure. You face to-day 

A man who wants instruction, mark me, not 

A woman who wants protection. As to a man, 

Show manhood, speak out plainly, be precise 

With facts and dates. My aunt inherited 

This sum, you say " — 

" I said she died possessed 
Of this, dear cousin." 



AURORA LEIGH. 



75 



" Not by heritage. 
Thank you ; we're getting to the facts at last. 
Perhaps she played at commerce with a ship 
Which came in heavy with Australian gold ? 
Or touched a lottery with her finger-end, 
Which tumbled on a sudden into her lap 
Some old Rhine tower or principality ? 
Perhaps she had to do with a marine 
Sub-transatlantic railroad which prepays 
As well as presupposes ? or perhaps 
Some stale ancestral debt was after-paid 
By a hundred years, and took her by surprise ? 
You shake your head, my cousin : I guess ill." 

" You need not guess, Aurora, nor deride : 
The truth is not afraid of hurting you. 
You'll find no cause in all your scruples, why 
Your aunt should cavil at a deed of gift 
'Twixt her and me." 

" I thought so — ah ! a gift.' 

" You naturally thought so," he resumed. 
" A very natural gift." 

" A gift, a gift ! 
Her individual life being stranded high 
Above all want, approaching opulence, 
Too haughty was she to accept a gift 
Without some ultimate aim. Ah, ah, I see ! — 
A gift intended plainly for her heirs. 
And so accepted ... if accepted ... ah. 
Indeed that might be : I am snared perhaps 
Just so. But, cousin, shall I pardon you. 
If thus you have caught me with a cruel spring ? " 



76 AURORA LEIGH. 

He answered gently, " Need you tremble and pant 
Like a nettled lioness ? Is't my fault, mine. 
That you're a grand wild creature of the woods, 
And hate the stall built for you ? Any way, 
Though triply netted, need you glare at me ? 
I do not hold the cords of such a net : 
You're free from me, Aurora." 

" Now may God 
Deliver me from this strait ! This gift of yours 
Was tendered . . . when ? accepted . . . when ? " I asked. 
" A month ... a fortnight since ? Six weeks ago 
It was not tendered : by a word she dropped 
I know it was not tendered nor received. 
When was it ? Bring your dates." 

" What matters when ? 
A half-hour ere she died, or a half-year. 
Secured the gift, maintains the heritage 
Inviolable with law. As easy pluck 
The golden stars from heaven's embroidered stole 
To pin them on the gray side of this earth. 
As make you poor again, thank God ! " 

" Not poor 
Nor clean again from henceforth, you thank God ? 
Well, sir — I ask you ... I insist at need . . . 
Vouchsafe the special date, the special date. " 

"The day before her death-day," he replied, 

" The gift was in her hands. We'll find that deed. 

And certify that date to you." 

As one 
Who has climbed a mountain-height, and carried up 
His own heart climbing, panting in his throat 
With the toil of the ascent, takes breath at last, 
Looks back in triumph, so I stood and looked. 



AURORA LEIGH. JJ 

" Dear cousin Romney, we have reached the top 

Of this steep question, and may rest, I think. 

But first, I pray you pardon that the shock 

And surge of natural feeling and event 

Has made me oblivious of acquainting you 

That this — this letter (unread, mark, still sealed) 

Was found infolded in the poor dead hand. 

That spirit of hers had gone beyond the address, 

Which could not find her, though you wrote it clear. 

I know your writing, Romney, — recognize 

The open-hearted A, the liberal sweep 

Of the G. Now listen. Let us understand : 

You will not find that famous deed of gift. 

Unless you find it in the letter here, 

Which, not being mine, I give you back. Refuse 

To take the letter ? Well, then, you and I, 

As writer and as heiress, open it 

Together, by your leave. Exactly so : 

The words in which the noble offering's made 

Are nobler still, my cousin, and I own 

The proudest and most delicate heart alive, 

Distracted from the measure of the gift 

By such a grace in giving, might accept 

Your largesse without thinking any more 

Of the burthen of it than King Solomon 

Considered, when he wore his holy ring 

Charactered over with the ineffable spell, 

How many carats of fine gold made up 

Its money value. So Leigh gives to Leigh ! 

Or rather might have given, observe — for that's 

The point we come to. Here's a proof of gift ; 

But here's no proof, sir, of acceptancy. 

But, rather, disproof. Death's black dust, being blown, 

Infiltrated through every secret fold 



78 AURORA LEIGH. 

Of this sealed letter by a puff of fate, 
Dried up forever the fresh-written ink, 
Annulled the gift, disutilized the grace. 
And left these fragments." 

As I spoke, I tore 
The paper up and down, and down and up. 
And crosswise, till it fluttered from my hands. 
As forest-leaves, stripped suddenly, and rapt 
By a whirlwind on Valdarno, drop again, — 
Drop slow, and strew the melancholy ground 
Before the amazed hills . . . why so, indeed, 
I'm writing like a poet, somewhat large 
In the type of the image, and exaggerate 
A small thing with a great thing, topping it ; 
But then I'm thinking how his eyes looked, his, 
With what despondent and surprised reproach ! 
I think the tears were in them as he looked ; 
I think the manly mouth just trembled. Then 
He broke the silence. 

" I may ask, perhaps, 
Although no stranger . . . only Romney Leigh, 
Which means still less . . . than Vincent Carrington, 
Your plans in going hence, and where you go. 
This cannot be a secret." 

" All my life 
Is open to you, cousin. I go hence 
To London, to the gathering-place of souls, 
To live mine straight out, vocally, in books. 
Harmoniously for others, if indeed 
A woman's soul, like man's, be wide enough 
To carry the whole octave (that's to prove) ; 
Or, if I fail, still purely for myself. 
Pray God be with me, Romney." 

" Ah ! poor child ! 



AURORA LEIGH. 79 



Who fight against the mother's 'tiring hand, 
And choose the headsman's. May God change his world 
For your sake, sweet, and make it mild as heaven, 
And juster than I have found you." 

But I paused. 
" And you, my cousin ? " 

" I," he said — " you ask .? 
You care to ask .? Well, girls have curious minds. 
And fain would know^ the end of everything. 
Of cousins, therefore, with the rest. For me, 
Aurora, I've my work : you know my work ; 
And, having missed this year some personal hope, 
I must bew^are the rather that I miss 
No reasonable duty. While you sing 
Your happy pastorals of the meads and trees, 
Bethink you that I go to impress and prove 
On stifled brains and deafened ears, stunned deaf, 
Crushed dull with grief, that nature sings itself. 
And needs no mediate poet, lute, or voice 
To make it vocal. While you ask of men 
Your audience, I may get their leave, perhaps. 
For hungry orphans to say audibly, 
' We're hungry, see : ' for beaten and bullied wives 
To hold their unweaned babies up in sight. 
Whom orphanage would better : and for all 
To speak and claim their portion ... by no means 
Of the soil . . . but of the sweat in tilling it ; 
Since this is nowadays turned privilege, 
To have only God's curse on us, and not man's. 
Such work I have for doing, elbows-deep 
In social problems, as you tie your rhymes. 
To draw my uses to cohere with needs. 
And bring the uneven world back to its round, 
Or, failing so much, fill up, bridge at least, 



So A URORA LEIGH. 



To smoother issues, some abysmal cracks 
And feuds of earth intestine heats have made 
To keep men separate, using sorry shifts 
Of hospitals, almshouses, infant schools, 
And other practical stuff of partial good 
You lovers of the beautiful and whole 
Despise by system." 

" / despise ? The scorn 
Is yours, my cousin. Poets become such 
Through scorning nothing. You decry them for 
The good of beauty sung and taught by them, 
While they respect your practical partial good, 
As being a part of beauty's self. Adieu ! 
When God helps all the workers for his world, 
The singers shall have help of him, not last." 

He smiled as men smile when they will not speak 
Because of something bitter in the thought ; 
And still I feel his melancholy eyes 
Look judgment on me. It is seven years since. 
I know not if 'twas pity or 'twas scorn 
Has made them so far-reaching ; judge it, ye 
Who have had to do with pity more than love, 
And scorn than hatred. I am used since then. 
To other ways from equal men. But so, 
Even so, we let go hands, my cousin and I, 
And in between us rushed the torrent-world 
To blanch our faces like divided rocks, 
And bar forever mutual sight and touch. 
Except through swirl of spray and all that roar. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



THIRD BOOK. 

*' Today thou girdest up thy loins thyself 
And goest where thou wouldest : presently 
Others shall gird thee,'' said the Lord, " to go 
Where thou wouldst not." He spoke to Peter thus. 
To signify the death which he should die 
When crucified head downward. 

If he spoke 
To Peter then, he speaks to us the same. 
The word suits many different martyrdoms. 
And signifies a multiform of death. 
Although we scarcely die apostles, we, 
And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth. 

For 'tis not in mere death that men die most; 
And, after our first girding of the loins 
In youth's fine linen and fair broidery 
To run up hill and meet the rising sun, 
We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool. 
While others gird us with the violent bands 
Of social figments, feints, and formalisms, 
Reversing our straight nature, lifting up 
Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts. 
Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world. 
Yet he can pluck us from that shameful cross. 
God, set our feet low and our forehead high. 
And show us how a man was made to walk ! 

Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed ; 
The room does very well. I have to write 
Be^^ond the stroke of midnight. Get away; 
Your steps, forever buzzing in the room, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters ! Throw them down 

At once, as I must have them, to be sure, 

Whether I bid you never bring me such 

At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse ; 

You choose to bring them, as I choose, perhaps. 

To throw them in the fire. Now get to bed. 

And dream, if possible, I am not cross. 

Why, what a pettish, petty thing I grow ! — 
A mere, mere woman, a mere flaccid nerve, 
A 'kerchief left out all night in the rain. 
Turned soft so, — overtasked and overstrained 
And overlived in this close London life. 
And yet I should be stronger. 

Never burn 
Your letters, poor Aurora ; for they stare 
With red seals from the table, saying each, 
" Here's something that you know not." Out, alas ! 
'Tis scarcely that the world's more good and wise, 
Or even straighter and more consequent, 
Since yesterday at this time ; yet, again, 
If but one angel spoke from Ararat, 
I should be very sorry not to hear : 
So open all the letters, let me read. 
Blanche Ord, the MTiter in the " Lady's Fan," 
Requests my judgment on . . . that, afterwards. 
Kate Ward desires the model of my cloak. 
And signs, " Elisha to you." Pringle Sharpe 
Presents his work on " Social Conduct," craves 
A little money for his pressing debts . . . 
From me, who scarce have money for my needs ; 
Art's fiery chariot which we journey in 
Being apt to singe our singing-robes to holes. 
Although you ask me for my cloak, Kate Ward. 



AURORA LEIGH. 83 



Here's Rudgely knows it, editor and scribe : 

He's " forced to marry where his heart is not, 

Because the purse lacks where he lost his heart." 

Ah — lost it because no one picked it up : 

That's really loss (and passable impudence). 

My critic Hammond flatters prettily, 

And wants another volume like the last. 

My critic Belfair wants another book 

Entirely different, which will sell, (and live ?) 

A striking book, yet not a startling book, 

The public blames originalities, 

(You must not pump spring-water unawares 

Upon a gracious public full of nerves :) 

Good things, not subtle, new yet orthodox. 

As easy reading as the dog-eared page 

That's fingered by said public fifty years. 

Since first taught spelling by its grandmother. 

And yet a revelation in some sort : 

That's hard, my critic Belfair. So — what next ? 

My critic Stokes objects to abstract thoughts. 

" Call a man John, a woman Joan," says he, 

" And do not prate so of humanities : " 

Whereat I call my critic simply Stokes. ^ 

My critic Johnson recommends more mirth, 

Because a cheerful genius suits the times, 

And all true poets laugh unquenchably 

Like Shakspeare and the gods. That's very hard. 

The gods may laugh, and Shakspeare ; Dante smiled 

With such a needy heart on two pale lips. 

We cry, "Weep, rather, Dante." Poems are 

Men, if true poems ; and who dares exclaim 

At any man's door, " Here, 'tis understood 

The thunder fell last week and killed a wife. 

And scared a sickly husband ; what of that ? 



84 AURORA LEIGH. 

Get up, be merry, shout, and clap your hands," 

Because a cheerful genius suits the times ? 

None says so to the man, and why, indeed, 

Should any to the poem ? A ninth seal ; 

The Apocalypse is drawing to a close. 

Ha — this from Vincent Carrington, — " Dear friend, 

I want good counsel. Will you lend me wings 

To raise me to the subject in a sketch 

I'll bring to-morrow — may I ? — at eleven ? 

A poet's only born to turn to use. 

So save you ! for the world . . . and Carrington " 

(Writ after). " Have you heard of Romney Leigh, 

Beyond what's said of him in newspapers. 

His phalansteries there, his speeches here. 

His pamphlets, pleas, and statements everywhere ? 

He dropped 7Jie long ago ; but no one drops 

A golden apple, though, indeed, one day 

You hinted that, but jested. Well, at least 

You know Lord Howe, who sees him . . . whom he sees, 

And you see, and I hate to see, — for Howe 

Stands high upon the brink of theories. 

Observes the swimmers, and cries, ' Very fine ! ' 

But keeps dry linen equally, — unlike 

That gallant breaster, Romney. Strange it is 

Such sudden madness seizing a young man 

To make earth over again, while I'm content 

To make the pictures. Let me bring the sketch : 

A tiptoe Danae, overbold and hot, 

Both arms aflame to meet her wishing Jove 

Halfway, and burn him faster down ; the face 

And breasts upturned and straining, the loose locks 

All glowing with the anticipated gold. 

Or here's another on the self-same theme. 

She lies here flat upon her prison-floor, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



The long hair swathed about her to the heel 

Like wet seaweed. You dimly see her through 

The glittering haze of that prodigious rain, 

Half blotted out of nature by a love 

As heavy as fate. I'll bring you either sketch. 

I think, myself, the second indicates 

More passion." 

Surely. Self is put away, 
And calm with abdication. She is Jove, 
And no more Danae — greater thus. Perhaps 
The painter symbolizes unaware 
Two states of the recipient artist-soul, 
One, forward, personal, wanting reverence, 
Because aspiring only. We'll be calm. 
And know, that, when indeed our Joves come down, 
AVe all turn stiller than we have ever been. 

Kind Vincent Carringtoh. I'll let him come. 

He talks of Florence^ and may say a word 

Of something as it chanced seven years ago, — 

A hedgehog in the path, or a lame bird, 

In those green country walks, in that good time 

When certainly I was so miserable. . . . 

I seem to have missed a blessing ever since. 

The music soars within the little lark. 
And the lark soars. It is not thus with men. 
We do not make our places with our strains. 
Content, while they rise, to remain behind 
Alone on earth, instead of so in heaven. 
No matter : I bear on my broken tale. 

When Romney Leigh and I had parted thus, 
I took a chamber up three flights of stairs 



86 AURORA LEIGH. 



Not far from being as steep as some larks climb, 

And there, in a certain house in Kensington, 

Three years I lived and worked.,] Get leave to work 

In this world — 'tis the best you get at all ; ' 

For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts 

Than men in benediction. God says, " Sweat 

For foreheads " : men say " Crowns." And so we are crowned. 

Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 

Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work ! 

Be sure 'tis better than what you w^ork to get. 

Serene and unafraid of solitude, 

I worked the short days out, and watched the sun 

On lurid morns or monstrous afternoons 

(Like some Druidic idol's fiery brass. 

With fixed unflickering outline of dead heat, 

From which the blood of wretches pent inside 

Seems oozing forth to incarnadine the air) 

Push out through fog with his dilated disk, 

And startle the slant roofs and chimney-pots 

With splashes of fierce color. Or I saw 

Fog only — the great tawny weltering fog — 

Involve the passive city, strangle it 

Alive, and draw it off into the void, — 

Spires, bridges, streets, and squares, — as if a sponge 

Had wiped out London, or as noon and night 

Had clapped together, and utterly struck out 

The intermediate time, undoing themselves 

In the act. Your city poets see such things 

Not despicable. Mountains of the south. 

When, drunk and mad with elemental wines. 

They rend the seamless mist, and stand up bare 

Make fewer singers, haply. No one sings, 

Descending Sinai : on Parnassus-mount 



AURORA LEIGH. 8/ 



You take a mule to climb, and not a muse, 

Except in fable and figure : forests chant 

Their anthems to themselves, and leave you dumb. 

But sit in London at the day's decline, 

And view the city perish in the mist 

Like Pharaoh's armaments in the deep Red Sea, 

The chariots, horsemen, footmen, all the host. 

Sucked down and choked to silence — then, surprised 

By a sudden sense of vision and of tune. 

You feel as conquerors, though you did not fight ; 

And you and Israel's other singing girls, 

Ay, Miriam with them, sing the song you choose. 

I worked with patience, which means almost power. 

I did some excellent things indifferently, 

Some bad things excellently. Both were praised. 

The latter loudest. And by such a time 

That I myself had set them down as sins 

Scarce worth the price of sackcloth, week by week 

Arrived some letter through the sedulous post, 

Like these I've read, and yet dissimilar. 

With pretty maiden seals, — initials twined 

Of lilies, or a heart marked E^nily, 

(Convicting Emily of being all heart ;) 

Or rarer tokens from young bachelors. 

Who wrote from college with the same goosequill, 

Suppose, they had just been plucked of, and a snatch 

From Horace, " Collegisse juvac,'' set 

Upon the first page. Many a letter, signed 

Or unsigned, showing the writers at eighteen 

Had lived too long, although a muse should help 

Their dawn by holding candles, — compliments 

To smile or sigh at. Such could pass with me 

No more than coins from Moscow circulate 



88 AURORA LEIGH. 



At Paris : would ten roubles buy a tag 

Or ribbon on the boulevard, worth a sou ? 

I smiled that all this youth should love me, sighed 

That such a love could scarcely raise them up 

To love what was more worthy than myself ; 

Then sighed again, again, less generously, 

To think the very love they lavished so 

Proved me inferior. The strong loved me not, 

And he . . . my Cousin Romney ... did not write. 

I felt the silent finger of his scorn 

Prick every bubble of my frivolous fame 

As my breath blew it, and resolve it back 

To the air it came from. Oh, I justified 

The measure he had taken of my height : 

The thing was plain — he was not wrong a line ; 

I played at art, made thrusts with a toy-sword, . 

Amused the lads and maidens. 

Came a sigh 
Deep, hoarse with resolution, — I would work 
To better ends, or play in earnest. " Pleavens, 
I think I should be almost popular 
If this went on ! " — I ripped my verses up. 
And found no blood upon the rapier's point ; 
The heart in them was just an embryo's heart, 
Which never yet had beat, that it should die 5 
Just gasps of make-believe galvanic life ; 
Mere tones, inorganized to any tune. 

And yet I felt it in me where it burnt. 

Like those hot fire-seeds of creation held 

In Jove's clenched palm before the worlds were sown 

But I — I was not Juno even ! my hand 

Was shut in weak convulsion, woman's ill ; 

And when I yearned to loose a finger — lo, 



AURORA LEIGH. 89 



The nerve revolted. 'Tis the same even now : 
This hand may never haply open large, 
Before the spark is quenched, or the palm charred, 
To prove the power not else than by the pain. 

It burnt, it burns — my whole life burnt with it ; 
And light, not sunlight and not torchlight, flashed 
My steps out through the slow and difficult road. 
I had grown distrustful of too forward springs. 
The season's books in drear significance 
Of morals, dropping round me. Lively books ? 
The ash has livelier verdure than the yew : 
And yet the yew's green longer, and alone 
Found worthy of the holy Christmas time : 
We'll plant more yews if possible, albeit 
We plant the graveyards with them. 

Day and night 
I worked my rhythmic thought, and furrowed up 
Both watch and slumber with long lines of life 
Which did not suit their season. The rose fell 
From either cheek, my eyes globed luminous 
Through orbits of blue shadow, and my pulse 
Would shudder along the purple-veined wrist 
Like a shot bird. Youth's stern, set face to face 
With youth's ideal ; and when people came 
And said, " You work too much, you are looking ill,' 
I smiled for pity on them who pitied me. 
And thought I should be better soon, perhaps. 
For those ill looks. Observe " I " means in youth 
Just /, the conscious and eternal soul 
With all Its ends, and not the outside life. 
The parcel-man, the doublet of the flesh, 
The so much liver, lung, integument, 
Which make the sum of " I " hereafter, when 



90 AURORA LEIGH. 

World-talkers talk of doing well or ill. 

/ prosper if I gain a step, although 

A nail then pierced my foot ; although my brain, 

Embracing' any truth, froze paralyzed, 

/prosper : I but change my instrument ; 

I break the spade off, digging deep for gold. 

And catch the mattock up. 

I worked on, on. 
Through all the bristling fence of nights and days 
Which hedges time in from the eternities 
I struggled, never stopped to note the stakes 
Which hurt me in my course. The midnight oil 
Would stink sometimes ; there came some vulgar needs 
I had to live that therefore I might work. 
And, being but poor, I was constrained, for life. 
To work with one hand for the booksellers 
While working with the other for myself 
And art : you swim with feet, as well as hands, 
Or make small way. I apprehended this. 
In England no one lives by verse that lives ; 
And, apprehending, I resolved by prose 
To make a space to sphere my living verse. 
I wrote for cyclopaedias, magazines. 
And weekly papers, holding up my name 
To keep it from the mud. I learnt the use 
Of the editorial " we " in a review, 
As courtly ladies the fine trick of trains, 
And swept it grandly through the open doors, 
As if one could not pass through doors at all. 
Save so encumbered. I wrote tales beside. 
Carved many an article on cherry-stones 
To suit light readers, — something in the lines 
Revealing, it was said, the mallet-hand ; 
But that I'll never vouch for. What you do 



AURORA LEIGH. 9 1 



For bread will taste of common grain, not grapes, 
Although you have a vineyard in Champagne, 
Much less in Nephelococcygia, 
As mine was, peradventure. 

Having bread 
For just so many days, just breathing-room 
For body and verse, I stood up straight, and worked 
My veritable work. And as the soul 
Which grows within a child makes the child grow, 
Or as the fiery sap, the touch from God, 
Careering through a tree, dilates the bark. 
And roughs with scale and knob, before it strikes 
The summer-foliage out in a green flame, 
So life, in deepening with me, deepened all 
The course I took, the work I did. Indeed, 
The academic law convinced of sin : 
The critics cried out on the falling off, 
Regretting the first manner. But I felt 
My heart's life throbbing in my verse to show 
It lived, it also — certes incomplete. 
Disordered with all Adam in the blood. 
But even its very tumors, warts, and wens 
Still organized by and implying life. 

A lady called upon me on such a day. 

She had the low voice of your English dames, — 

Unused, it seemed, to need rise half a note 

To catch attention, — and their quiet mood, 

As if they lived too high above the earth 

For that to put them out in anything : 

So gentle, because verily so proud ; 

So wary and afraid of hurting you, 

By no means that you are not really vile, 

But that they would not touch you with their foot 



92 AURORA LEIGH. 

To push you to your place ; so self-possessed, 
Yet gracious and conciliating, it takes 
An effort in their presence to speak truth : 
You know the sort of woman — brilliant stuff, 
And out of nature. " Lady Waldemar." 
She said her name quite simply, as if it meant 
Not much, indeed, but something ; took my hands, 
And smiled as if her smile could help my case, 
And dropped her eyes on me and let them melt. 
" Is this," she said, " the muse ? " 

" No sibyl, even, 
I answered, " since she fails to guess the cause 
Which taxed you with this visit, madam." 

"Good,' 
She said. " I value what's sincere at once. 
Perhaps if I had found a literal muse, 
The visit might have taxed me. As it is. 
You wear your blue so chiefly in your eyes, 
My fair Aurora, in a frank, good way, 
It comforts me entirely for your fame. 
As well as for the trouble of ascent 
To this Olympus." 

There a silver laugh 
Ran rippling through her quickened little breaths 
The steep stair somewhat justified. 

" But still 
Your ladyship has left me curious why 
You dared the risk of finding the said muse ? " 

" Ah, keep me, notwithstanding, to the point, 

Like any pedant ? Is the blue in eyes 

As awful as in stockings, after all, 

I wonder, that you'd have my business out 

Before I breathe — exact the epic plunge 



AURORA LEIGH. 93 



In spite of gasps ? Well, naturally you think 

I've come here, as the lion-hunters go 

To deserts, to secure you with a trap 

For exhibition in my drawing-rooms 

On zoologic soirees ? not in the least, 

Roar softly at me : I am frivolous, 

I dare say ; I have played at wild-beast shows 

Like other women of my class, — but now 

I meet my lion simply as Androcles 

Met his . . . when at his mercy." 

So she bent 
Her head as queens may mock, then, lifting up 
Her eyelids with a real grave queenly look, 
Which ruled, and would not spare, not even herself, — 
" I think you have a cousin, — Romney Leigh." 

"You bring a word from hhn ? " — my eyes leapt up 
To the very height of hers, — "a word from hi7n ? " 

" I bring a word about him actually. 

But first " (she pressed me with her urgent eyes), 

" You do not love him, — you ? " 

" You're frank, at least, 
In putting questions, madam," I replied. 
" I love my cousin cousinly — no more." 

" I guessed as much. I'm ready to be frank 
In answering also, if you'll question me. 
Or even for something less. You stand outside, 
You artist women, of the common sex ; 
You share not with us, and exceed us so 
Perhaps by what you're mulcted in, your hearts 
Being starved to make your heads : so run the old 
Traditions of you. I can therefore speak 



94 AURORA LEIGH. 



Without the natural shame which creatures feel, 
When speaking on their level to their like. 
There's many a papist she would rather die 
Than own to her maid she put a ribbon on 
To catch the indifferent eye of such a man, 
Who yet would count adulteries on her beads 
At holy Mary's shrine, and never blush. 
Because the saints are so far off we lose 
All modesty before them. Thus to-day. 
'Tis /love Romney Leigh." 

" Forbear! " I cried. 
" If here's no muse, still less is any saint, 
Nor even a friend, that Lady Waldemar 
Should make confessions "... 

" That's unkindly said. 
If no friend, what forbids to make a friend 
To join to our confession, ere we have done .'' 
I love your cousin. If it seems unwise 
To say so, it's still foolisher (we're frank) 
To feel so. My first husband left me young, 
And pretty enough, so please you, and rich enough 
To keep my booth in May-fair with the rest 
To happy issues. There are marquises 
Would serve seven years to call me wife, I know. 
And after seven I might consider it. 
For there's some comfort in a marquisate, 
When all's said, — yes, but after the seven years ; 
I now love Romney. You put up your lip 
So like a Leigh ! so like him ! Pardon me, 
I'm well aware I do not derogate 
In loving Romney I^eigh. The name is good. 
The means are excellent ; but the man, the man — 
Heaven help us both, — I am near as mad as he 
In loving such an one." 



AURORA LEIGH. 95 



She slowly swung 
Her heavy ringlets till they touched her smile, 
As reasonably sorry for herself, 
And thus continued : — 

'' Of a truth, Miss Leigh, 

I have not without struggle come to this. 

I took a master in the German tongue, 

I gamed a little, went to Paris twice ; 

But, after all, this love ! ... you eat of love, 

And do as vile a thing as if you ate 

Of garlic, which, whatever else you eat, 

Tastes uniformly acrid, till your peach 

Reminds you of your onion. Am I coarse ? 

Well, love's coarse, nature's coarse. Ah, there's the rub ! 

We fair fine ladies, who park out our lives 

From common sheep-paths, cannot help the crows 

From flying over : we're as natural still 

As Blowsalinda. Drape us perfectly 

In Lyons velvet, we are not for that 

Lay-figures, look you : we have hearts within,— 

Warm, live, improvident, indecent hearts, 

As ready for outrageous ends and acts 

As any distressed seamstress of them all 

That Romney groans and toils for. We catch love. 

And other fevers, in the vulgar way. 

Love will not be outwitted by our wit, 

Nor outrun by our equipages : mine 

Persisted, spite of efforts. All my cards 

Turned up but Romney Leigh; my German stopped 

At germane Wertherism ; my Paris rounds 

Returned me from the Champs Elysees just 

A ghost, and sighing like Dido's. I came home 

Uncured, convicted rather to myself 



96 AURORA LEIGH. 

Of being in love ... in love ! That's coarse, you'll say, 
I'm talking garlic." 

Coldly I replied : 
" Apologize for atheism, not love ! 
For me, I do believe in love, and God. 
I know my cousin ; Lady Waldemar 
I know not : yet I say as much as this, — 
Whoever loves him, let her not excuse. 
But cleanse herself, that, loving such a man, 
She may not do it with such unworthy love 
He cannot stoop and take it." 

" That is said 
-Austerely, like a youthful prophetess, 
Who knits her brows across her pretty eyes 
To keep them back from following the gray flight 
'Of doves between the temple-columns. Dear, 
Be kinder with me : let us two be friends. 
I'm a mere woman, — the more weak, perhaps. 
Through being so proud ; you're better ; as for him, 
He's best. Indeed, he builds his goodness up 
So high it topples down to the other side, 
And makes a sort of badness : there's the worst 
I have to say against your cousin's best. 
And so be mild, Aurora, with my worst. 
For his sake, if not mine." 

" I own myself 
Incredulous of confidence like this 
Availing him or you." 

" And I, myself, 
Of being worthy of him with any love ; 
In your sense I am not so ; let it pass. 
And yet I save him if I marry him ; 
Let that pass, too." 



AURORA LEIGH. 97 

" Pass, pass ! we play police 
Upon my cousin's life to indicate 
What may or may not pass ? " I cried. " He knows 
What's worthy of him : the choice remains with hb7i ; 
And what he chooses, act or wife, I think 
I shall not call unworthy, I, for one." 

" Tis somewhat rashly said," she answered slow. 
" Now let's talk reason, though we talk of love. 
Your Cousin Romney Leigh's a monster ; there, 
The word's out fairly, let me prove the fact. 
We'll take, say, that most perfect of antiques. 
They call the Genius of the Vatican, 
(Which seems too beauteous to endure itself 
In this mixed world), and fasten it for once 
Upon the torso of the Dancing Faun 
(Who might limp, surely, if he did not dance), 
Instead of Buonarotti's mask : what then ? 
We show the sort of monster Romney is. 
With godlike virtues and heroic aims 
Subjoined to limping possibilities 
Of mismade human nature. Grant the man 
Twice godlike, twice heroic, still he limps ; 
And here's the point we come to." 

" Pardon me ; 
But, Lady Waldemar, the point's the thing 
We never come to." 

"Caustic, insolent 
At need ! I like you," — (here she took my hands) • 
" And now my lioness, help Androcles, 
For all your roaring. Help me ! for myself 
I would not say so, but for him. He limps 
So certainly, he'll fall into the pit 
A week hence, — so I lose him, so he is lost 1 



98 AURORA LEIGH. 



For when he's fairly married, he a Leigh, 
To a girl of doubtful life, undoubtful birth, 
Starved out in London till her coarse-grained hands 
Are whiter than her morals, even you 
May call his choice unworthy." 

" Married ! lost ! 
He . . . Romney ! " 

" Ah, you're moved at last," she said. 
'' These monsters, set out in the open sun, 
Of course throw monstrous shadows ; those who throw 
Awry will scarcely act straightly. Who but he ? 
And who but you can wonder ? He has been mad. 
The whole world knows, since first, a nominal man, 
He soured the proctors, tried the gownsmen's wits 
With equal scorn of triangles and wine. 
And took no honors, yet was honorable. 
They'll tell you he lost count of Homer's ships 
In Melbourne's poor-bills, Ashley's factory-bills; 
Ignored the Aspasia we all dare to praise, 
For other women, dear, we could not name 
Because we're decent. Well, he had some right 
On his side, probably : men always have. 
Who go absurdly wrong. The living boor 
Who brews your ale exceeds in vital worth 
Dead Caesar who ' stops bungholes ' in the cask. 
And also, to do good is excellent. 
For persons of his income, even to boors. 
I sympathize with all such things. But he 
Went mad upon them . . . madder and more mad 
From college times to these, as, going down hill, 
The faster still, the farther. You must know 
Your Leigh by heart : he has sown his black young curls 
With bleaching cares of half a million men 
Already. If you do not starve, or sin, 



AURORA LEIGH, 00 



You're nothing to him : pay the income tax, 

And break your heart upon't, he'll scarce be touched ; 

But come upon the parish, qualified 

For the parish stocks, and Romney will be there 

To call you brother, sister, or perhaps 

A tenderer name still. Had I any chance 

With Mister Leigh, who am Lady Waldemar, 

And never committed felony ? " 

" You speak 
Too bitterly," I said, "for the literal truth." 

" The truth is bitter. Here's a man who looks 

Forever on the ground. You must be low, 

Or else a pictured ceiling overhead. 

Good painting thrown away. For me, I've done 

What women may : we're somewhat limited, 

We modest women ; but I've done my best 

— How men are perjured when they swear our eyes 

Have meaning in them ! They're just blue or brovs'n^ 

They just can drop their lids a little. And yet 

Mine did more ; for I read half Fourier through, 

Proudhon, Considerant, and Louis Blanc, 

With various others of his socialists. 

And, if I had been a fathom less in love. 

Had cured myself with gaping. As it was 

I quoted from them prettily enough. 

Perhaps, to make them sound half rational 

To a saner man than he whene'er we talked, 

(For which I dodged occasion ;) learnt by heart 

His speeches in the Commons and elsewhere 

Upon the social question ; heaped reports 

Of wicked women and penitentiaries 

On all my tables (with a place for Sue) ; 

And gave my name to swell subscription-lists 



100 AURORA LEIGH. 

Toward keeping up the sun at nights in heaven, 

And other possible ends. All things I did, 

Except the impossible . . . such as wearing gowns 

Provided by the Ten Hours' movement : there 

I stopped — we must stop somewhere. He, meanwhile 

Unmoved as the Indian tortoise 'neath the world, 

Let all that noise go on upon his back. 

He would not disconcert or throw me out ; 

'Twas well to see a woman of my class 

With such a dawn of conscience. For the heart 

Made firewood for his sake, and flaming up 

To his face, — he merely warmed his feet at it : 

Just deigned to let my carriage stop him short 

In park or street, he leaning on the door 

With news of the committee which sate last 

On pickpockets at suck." 

"You jest, you jest." 

" As martyrs jest, dear (if you read their lives), 
Upon the axe which kills them. When all's done 
By me . . . for him — you'll ask him presently 
The color of my hair : he cannot tell. 
Or answers, ' Dark,' at random ; while, be sure, 
He's absolute on the figure, five or ten. 
Of my last subscription. Is it bearable, 
And I a woman ? " 

" Is it reparable, 
Though /were a man ? " 

" I know not. That's to prove. 
But first, this shameful marriage ? " 

" Ay .? " I cried, 
" Then really there's a marriage ' " 

" Yesterday 
I held him fast upon it. ' Mister Leigh,' 



AURORA LEIGH. lO 



Said I, ' shut up a thing, it makes more noise. 

The boiling town keeps secrets ill : I've known 

Yours since last week. Forgive my knowledge so : 

You feel I'm not the woman of the world 

The world thinks ; you have borne with me before, 

And used me in your noble work, our work, 

And now you shall not cast me off because 

You're at the difficult point, they^/;/. 'Tis true 

Even I can scarce admit the cogency 

Of such a marriage . . . where you do not love, 

(Except the class) yet marry, and throw your name 

Down to the gutter, for a fire-escape 

To future generations ! 'tis sublime, 

A great example, a true genesis 

Of the opening social era. But take heed : 

This virtuous act must have a patent weight, 

Or loses half its virtue. Make it tell, 

Interpret it, and set in the light, 

And do not muffle it in a winter-cloak 

As a vulgar bit of shame, — as if, at best, 

A Leigh had made a misalliance, and blushed 

A Howard should know it.' Then I pressed him more 

' He would not choose,' I said, ' that even his kin . . . 

Aurora Leigh, even . . . should conceive his act 

Less sacrifice, more fantasy. ' At which 

He grew so pale, dear ... to the lips, I knew 

I had touched him. ' Do you know her,' he inquired, 

' My Cousin Aurora ? ' — ' Yes,' I said, and lied 

(But truly we all know you by your books), 

And so I offered to come straight to you, 

Explain the subject, justify the cause. 

And take you with me to St. Margaret's Court 

To see the miracle, this Marian Erie, 

This drover's daughter (she's not pretty, he swears). 



I02 AURORA LEIGH. 

Upon whose finger, exquisitely pricked 

By a hundred needles, we're to hang the tie 

'Twixt class and class in England, — thus indeed 

By such a presence, yours and mine, to lift . 

The match up from the doubtful place. At once 

He thanked me, sighing, murmured to himself, 

' She'll do it, perhaps : she's noble,' — thanked me twice. 

And promised, as my guerdon, to put off 

His marriage for a month." 

I answered then, 
" I understand your drift imperfectly. 
Vou wish to lead me to my cousin's betrothed, 
To touch her hand if worthy, and hold her hand 
If feeble, thus to justify his match. 
So be it, then. But how this serves your ends. 
And how the strange confession of your love 
Serves this, I have to learn — I cannot see." 

She knit her restless forehead. " Then despite, 

Aurora, that most radiant morning name. 

You're dull as any London afternoon. 

I wanted time, and gained it ; wanted yoic, 

And gain you ! You will come and see the girl 

In whose most prodigal eyes the lineal pearl 

And pride of all your lofty race of Leighs 

Is destined to solution. Authorized 

By sight and knowledge, then, you'll speak your mind, 

And prove to Romney, in your brilliant way, 

He'll wrong the people and posterit}^, 

(Say such a thing is bad for me and you, 

And you fail utterly) by concluding thus 

An execrable marriage. Break it up, 

Disroot it ; peradventure presently 

We'll plant a better fortune in its place. 



AURORA LEIGH. 103 



Be good to me, Aurora, scorn me less 

For saying the thing I should not. Well I know 

I should not. I have kept, as others have, 

The iron rule of womanly reserve 

In lip and life, till now : I wept a week 

Before I came here." Ending, she was pale. 

The last words, haughtily said, were tremulous. 

This palfrey pranced in harness, arched her neck, 

And only by the foam upon the bit 

You saw she champed against it. 

Then I rose. 

" I love love : truth's no cleaner thing than love. 

I comprehend a love so fiery hot 

It burns its natural veil of august shame, 

And stands sublimely in the nude, as chaste 

As Medicean Venus. But I know, 

A love that burns through veils will burn through masks, 

And shrivel up treachery. What, love and lie ! 

Nay. Go to the opera ! Your love's curable." 

« I love and lie ? " she said, — " I lie, forsooth ? " 

And beat her taper foot upon the floor, 

And smiled against the shoe, — " You're hard, Miss Leigh, 

Unversed in current phrases. Bowling-greens 

Of poets are fresher than the world's highways. 

Forgive me that I rashly blew the dust 

Which dims our hedges even, in your eyes, 

And vexed you so much. You find, probably, 

No evil in this marriage, rather good 

Of innocence, to pastoralize in song. 

You'll give the bond your signature, perhaps, 

Beneath the lady's mark, indifferent 

That Romney chose a wife could write ner name, 

In witnessing he loved her." 



104 AURORA LEIGH. 

" Loved ! " I cried. 
" Who tells you that he wants a wife to love ? 
He gets a horse to use, not love, I think : 
There's work for wives, as well, — and after, straw, 
When men are liberal. For m3^self, you err 
Supposing power in me to break this match. 
I could not do it to save Romney's life. 
And would not to save mine." 

"You take it so," 
She said : " farewell, then. Write your books in peace, 
As far as may be for some secret stir 
Now obvious to me ; for, most obviously, 
In coming hither I mistook the way." 
Whereat she touched my hand, and bent her head, 
And floated from me like a silent cloud 
That leaves the sense of thunder. 

I drew breath. 
Oppressed in my deliverance. After all, 
This woman breaks her social system up 
For love, so counted, — the love possible 
To such; and lilies are still lilies, pulled 
By smutty hands, though spotted' from their white; 
And thus she is better haply, of her kind, 
Than Romney Leigh, who lives by diagrams. 
And crosses out the spontaneities 
Of all his individual, personal life 
With formal universals. As if a man 
Were set upon a high stool at a desk 
To keep God's books for him in red and black. 
And feel by millions ! What if even God 
Were chiefly God by living out himself 
To an individualism of the infinite, 
Eterne, intense, profuse, — still throwing up 
The golden spray of multitudinous worlds 



AURORA LEIGH. 105 

In measure to the proclive weight and rush 
Of his inner nature, — the si3ontaneous love 
Still proof and outflow of spontaneous life ? 
Then live, Aurora. 

Two hours afterward, 
Within St. Margaret's Court I stood alone, 
Close-veiled. A sick child, from an ague-fit. 
Whose wasted right hand gambolled 'gainst his left 
With an old brass button in a blot of sun, 
Jeered weakly at me as 1 passed across 
The uneven pavement ; while a woman rouged 
Upon the angular cheek-bones, 'kerchief torn, 
Thm dangling locks, and flat, lascivious mouth. 
Cursed at a window both ways, in and out, 
By turns some bed-rid creature and myself, — 
" Lie still there, mother ! liker the dead dog 
You'll be to-morrow. What, we pick our way, 
Fine madam, with those damnable small feet ! 
We cover up our face from doing good. 
As if it were our purse ! What brings you here, 
My lady ? ist to find my gentleman 
Who visits his tame pigeon in the eaves ? 
Our cholera catch you with its cramps and spasms, 
And tumble up your good clothes, veil and all, 
And turn your whiteness dead-blue ! " I looked up • 
I think I could have walked through hell that day, 
And never flinched. " The dear Christ comfort you,'' 
I said, " you must have been most miserable, 
To be so cruel ; " and I emptied out 
My purse upon the stones : when, as I had cast 
The last charm in the caldron, the whole court 
Went boiling, bubbling up, from all its doors 
And windows, with a hideous wail of laughs. 
And roar of oaths, and blows perhaps ... I passed 



I06 AURORA LEIGH. 



Too quickly for distinguishing . . . and pushed 

A Uttle side-door hanging on a hinge, 

And plunged into the dark, and groped and climb 

The long, steep, narrow stair 'twixt broken rail 

And mildewed wall that let the plaster drop 

To startle me in the blackness. Still, up, up ! 

So high lived Romney's bride. I paused at last 

Before a low door in the roof, and knocked : 

There came an answer like a hurried dove, — 

" So soon ? can that be Mister Leigh ? so soon ? " 

And as I entered an ineffable face 

Met mine upon the threshold. " Oh, not you. 

Not you ! " The dropping of the voice implied, 

*'Then, if not you, for me not any one." 

1 looked her in the eyes, and held her hands. 

And said, " I am his cousin. — Romney Leigh's ; 

And here I come to see my cousm too." 

She touched me with her face and with her voice. 

This daughter of the people. Such soft flowers. 

From such rough roots ? the people under there. 

Can sin so, curse so, look so, smell so . . . faugh ! 

Yet have such daughters ? 

Nowise beautiful 
Was Marian Erie. She was not white nor brown. 
But could look either, like a mist that changed 
According to being shone on more or less. 
The hair, too, ran its opulence of curls 
In doubt 'twixt dark and bright, nor left you clear 
To name the color. Too much hair, perhaps, 
(I'll name a fault here) for so small a head. 
Which seemed to droop on that side and on this, 
As a full-blown rose uneasy with its weight. 
Though not a wind should trouble it. Again, 
The dimple in the cheek bad better gone 




MARIAN ER LE. 



AURORA LEIGH. 107 

With redder, fuller rounds ; and somewhat large 
The mouth was, though the milky little teeth 
Dissolved it to so infantine a smile. 
For soon it smiled at me ; the eyes smiled too, 
But 'twas as if remembering they had wept. 
And knowing they should some day weep again. 

We talked. She told me all her story out, 

Which I'll retell with fuller utterance. 

As colored and confirmed in after times 

By others and herself too. Marian Erie 

Was born upon the ledge of Malvern Hill, 

To eastward, in a hut built up at night. 

To evade the landlord's eye, of mud and turf ; 

Still liable, if once he looked that way. 

To being straight levelled, scattered by his foot, 

Like any other ant-hill. Born, I say. 

God sent her to this world commissioned right, 

Her human testimonials fully signed ; 

Not scant in soul, complete in lineaments : 

But others had to swindle her a place 

To wail in when she had come. No place for her 

By man's law ! Born an outlaw was this babe : 

Her first cry in our strange and strangling air, 

When cast in spasms out by the shuddering womb. 

Was wrong against the social code, — forced wrong: 

What business had the baby to cry there ? 

I tell her story and grow passionate. 
She, Marian, did not tell it so, but used 
Meek words that made no wonder of herself 
For being so sad a creature. " Mister Leigh 
Considered truly that such things should change. 
They will^ in heaven — but meantime, on the eartlv 



I08 AURORA LEIGH. 

There's none can like a nettle as a pink, 

Except himself. We're nettles, some of us, 

.And give offence by the act of springing up ; 

And, if we leave the damp side of the wall, 

The hoes, of course, are on us." So she said. 

Her father earned his life by random jobs 

Despised by steadier workmen, — keeping swine 

On commons, picking hops, or hurrying on 

The harvest at wet seasons, or, at need. 

Assisting the Welsh drovers, when a drove 

Of startled horses plunged into the mist 

Below the mountain road, and sowed the wind 

With wandering neighings. In between the gaps 

Of such irregular work he drank and slept, 

And cursed his wife because, the pence being out, 

She could not buy more drink. At which she turned, 

(The worm) and beat her baby in revenge 

For her own broken heart. There's not a crime 

But takes its proper change out still in crime 

If once rung on the counter of this world : 

Let sinners look to it. 

Yet the outcast child. 
For whom the very mother's face forewent 
The mother's special patience, lived and grew ; 
Learnt early to cry low, and walk alone, 
With that pathetic, vacillating roll 
Of the infant body on the uncertain feet 
(The earth being felt unstable ground so soon)^ 
At which most women's arms unclose at once 
With irrepressive instinct. Thus at three 
This poor weaned kid would run off from the fold, 
This babe would steal off from the mother's chair. 
And, creeping through the golden walls of gorse 
Would find some keyhole toward the secrecy 



AURORA LEIGH. 109 



Of heaven's high blue, and, nestling down, peer out — 

Oh, not to catch the angels at their games, 

She had never heard of angels, — but to gaze 

She knew not why, to see she knew not what, 

A-hungering outward from the barren earth 

For something like a joy. She liked, she said, 

To dazzle black her sight against the sky ; 

For then, it seemed, some grand blind Love came down, 

And groped her out, and clasped her with a kiss. 

She learnt God that way, and was beat for it 

Whenever she went home, yet came again, 

As surely as the trapped hare, getting free, 

Returns to his form. This grand blind Love, she said, 

This skyey father and mother both in one, 

Instructed her and civilized her more 

Than even Sunday-school did afterward, 

To which a lady sent her to learn books, 

And sit upon a long bench in a row 

With other children. Well, she laughed sometimes 

To see them laugh and laugh, and maul their texts ; 

But ofter she was sorrowful with noise, 

And wondered if their mothers beat them hard 

That ever they should laugh so. There was one 

She loved indeed, — Rose Bell, a seven years' child, 

So pretty and clever, who read syllables 

When Marian was at letters : she would laugh 

At nothing, hold your finger up, she laughed. 

Then shook her curls down over eyes and mouth 

To hide her make-mirth from the schoolmaster. 

And Rose's pelting glee, as frank as rain 

On cherry-blossoms, brightened Marian too. 

To see another merry whom she loved. 

She whispered once (the children side by side, 

With mutual arms entwined about their necks), 



no AURORA LEIGH. 

'•Your mother lets you laugh so? " '' Ay," said Rose, 

"She lets me. She was dug into the ground 

Six years since, I being but a yearling wean. 

Such mothers let us play, and lose our time, 

And never scold nor beat us. Don't you wish 

You had one like that ? " There Marian, breaking off, 

Looked suddenly in my face. " Poor Rose ! " said she 

" I heard her laugh last night in Oxford Street. 

I'd pour out half my blood to stop that laugh. 

Poor Rose, poor Rose ! " said Marian. 

She resumed. 
It tried her, when she had learnt at Sunday-school 
What God was, what he wanted from us all, 
And how in choosing sin we vexed the Christ, 
To go straight home, and hear her father pull 
The Name down on us from the thunder-shelf. 
Then drink away his soul into the dark 
From seeing judgment. Father, mother, home. 
Were God and heaven reversed to her : the more 
She knew of right, the more she guessed their wrong : 
Her price paid down for knowledge was to know 
The vileness of her kindred : through her heart, 
Her filial and tormented heart, henceforth, 
They struck their blows at virtue. Oh ! 'tis hard 
To learn you have a father up in heaven 
By a gathering certain sense of being, on earth, 
Still worse than orphaned : 'tis too heavy a grief 
The having to thank God for such a joy. 

And so passed Marian's life from year to year. 
Her parents took her with them when they tramped. 
Dodged lanes and heaths, frequented towns and fairs, . 
And once went farther, and saw Manchester, 
And once the sea, — that blue end of the world, 



AURORA LEIGH. Ill 

That fair scroll-finis of a wicked book, — 

And twice a prison, back at intervals. 

Returning to the hills. Hills draw like heaven, 

And stronger sometimes, holding out their hands 

To pull you from the vile flats up to them. 

And though, perhaps, these strollers still strolled back. 

As sheep do, simply that they knew the way, 

They certainly felt bettered unaware. 

Emerging from the social smut of towns. 

To wipe their feet clean on the mountain turf. 

In which long wanderings Marian lived and learned, 

Endured and learned. The people on the roads 

Would stojD and ask her why her eyes outgrew 

Her cheeks, and if she meant to lodge the birds 

In all that hair ; and then they lifted her, — 

The miller in his cart a mile or twain, 

The butcher's boy on horseback. Often, too. 

The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head 

With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed. 

And asked, if peradventure she could read ; 

And when she answered, " Ay," would toss hei down 

Some stray odd volume from his heavy pack, — 

A "Thomson's Seasons," mulcted of the spring, 

Or half a play of Shakspeare's, torn across, 

(She had to guess the bottom of a page 

By just the top, sometimes ; as difficult 

As, sitting upon the moon, to guess the earth !) 

Or else a sheaf of leaves (for that small Ruth's 

Small gleanings) torn out from the heart of books, 

From Churchyard Elegies and Edens Lost, 

From Burns, and Bunyan, Selkirk, and Tom Jones. 

'Twas somewhat hard to keep the things distinct ; 

And oft the jangling influence jarred the child, 

Like looking at a sunset full of grace 



112 AURORA LEIGH. 

Through a pot-house window, while the drunken oaths 

Went on behind her. But she weeded out 

Her book-leaves, threw away the leaves that hurt 

(First tore them small, that none should find a word), 

And made a nosegay of the sweet and good 

To fold within her breast, and pore upon 

At broken moments of the noontide glare, 

When leave was given her to untie her cloak, 

And rest upon the dusty highway's bank 

From the road's dust : or oft, the journey done, 

Some city friend would lead her by the hand 

To hear a lecture at an institute. 

And thus she had grown, this Marian Erie of ours, 

To no book-learning. She was ignorant 

Of authors ; not in earshot of the things 

Outspoken o'er the heads of common men 

By men who are uncommon, but within 

The cadenced hum of such, and capable 

Of catching from the fringes of the wing 

Som.e fragmentary phrases here and there 

Of that fine music, which, being carried in 

To her soul, had reproduced itself afresh 

In finer motions of the lips and lids. 

She said, in speaking of it, " If a flow^er 
Were thrown you out of heaven at intervals. 
You'd soon attain to a trick of looking up." 
And so with her. She counted me her years, 
Till /felt old ; and then she counted me 
Her sorrowful pleasures, till I felt ashamed. 
She told me she was fortunate and calm 
On such and such a season, sate and sewed. 
With no one to break up her crystal thoughts. 
While rhymes from lovely poems span around 



AURORA LEIGH. IT3 



Their ringing circles of ecstatic tune, 

Beneath the moistened finger of the hour. 

Her parents called her a strange, sickly child, 

Not good for much, and given to sulk and stare. 

And smile into the hedges and the clouds. 

And tremble if one shook her from her fit 

By any blow, or word even. Outdoor jobs 

Went ill with her, and household quiet work 

She was not born to. Had they kept the north, 

They might have had their pennyworth out of her. 

Like other parents, in the factories, 

(Your children work for you, not you for them. 

Or else they better had been choked with air 

The first breath drawn) ; but, in this tramping life. 

Was nothing to be done with such a child 

But tramp and tramp. And yet she knitted hose 

Not ill, and was not dull at needle-work ; 

And all the country people gave her pence 

For darning stockings past their natural age, 

And patching petticoats from old to new. 

And other light work done for thrifty wives. 

One day, said Marian, — the sun shone that day, — 

Her mother had been badly beat, and felt 

The bruises sore about her wretched soul, 

(That must have been) : she came in suddenly, 

And snatching in a sort of breathless rage 

Her daughter's headgear comb, let down the hair 

Upon her like a sudden waterfall. 

Then drew her drenched and passive by the arm 

Outside the hut they lived in. When the child 

Could clear her blinded face from all that stream 

Of tresses . . . there a man stood, with beast's eyes. 

That seemed as they would swallow her alive, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Complete in body and spirit, hair and all, 

And burning stertorous breath that hurt her cheek, 

He breathed so near. The mother held her tight. 

Saying hard between her teeth, "Why, wench, why, wench, 

The squire speaks to you now ! the squire's too good : 

He means to set you up, and comfort us. 

Be mannerly at least.'' The child turned round 

And looked up piteous in the mother's face, 

(Be sure that mother's death-bed will not want 

Another devil to damn, than such a look) 

" O mother ! " Then, with desperate glance to heaven, 

" God, free me from my mother ! " she shrieked out, 

" These mothers are too dreadful." And, with force 

As passionate as fear, she tore her hands, 

Like lilies from the rocks, from hers and his. 

And sprang down, bounded headlong down the steep, 

Away from both — away, if possible. 

As far as God, — away ! They yelled at her. 

As famished hounds at a hare. She heard them yell ; 

She felt her name hiss after her from the hills. 

Like shot from guns. On, on. And now she had cast 

The voices off with the uplands. On. Mad fear 

Was running in her feet, and killing the ground ; 

The white roads curled as if she burnt them up ; 

The green fields melted ; wayside trees fell back 

To make room for her. Then her head grew vexed ; 

Trees, fields, turned on her and ran after her ; 

She heard the quick pants of the hills behind. 

Their keen air pricked her neck : she had lost her feet, 

Could run no more, yet somehow went as fast, 

The horizon red 'twixt steeples in the east 

So sucked her forward, forward, while her heart 

Kept swelling, swelling, till it swelled so big 

It seemed to fill her body, when it burst, 




** A wagoner h:id found her in :i ditcii." — Page 115. 



AURORA LEIGH. I15 

And overflowed the world, and swamped the Ught : 
" And now I am dead and safe," thought Marian Erie. 
She had dropped, she had fainted. 

As the sense returned. 
The night had passed, — not life's night. She was 'ware 
Of heavy tumbling motions, creaking wheels. 
The driver shouting to the lazy team 
That swung their rankling bells against her brain. 
While through the wagon's coverture and chinks 
The cruel yellow morning pecked at her, 
Alive or dead upon the straw inside ; 
At which her soul ached back into the dark 
And prayed, " No more of that." A wagoner 
Had found her in a ditch beneath the moon, 
As white as moonshine, save for the oozing blood. 
At first he thought her dead ; but when he had wiped 
The mouth, and heard it sigh, he raised her up, 
And laid her in his wagon in the straw, 
And so conveyed her to the distant town 
To which his business called himself, and left 
That heap of misery at the hospital. 

She stirred : the place seemed new and strange as death. 

The white strait bed, with others strait and white. 

Like graves dug side by side at measured lengths, 

And quiet people walking in and out 

With wonderful low voices and soft steps, 

And apparitional equal care for each, 

Astonished her with order, silence, law ; 

And when a gentle hand held out a cup, 

She took it, as you do at sacrament, 

Half awed, half melted, not being used, indeed, 

To so much love as makes the form of love 

And courtesy of manners. Delicate drinks. 



Il6 AURORA LEIGH. 

And rare white bread, to which some dying eyes 

Were turned in observation. O my God, 

How sick we must be ere we make men just ! 

I think it frets the saints in heaven to see 

How many desolate creatures on the earth 

Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship 

And social comfort, in a hospital, 

As Marian did. She lay there, stunned, half tranced, 

And wished, at intervals of growing sense, 

She might be sicker yet, if sickness made 

The world so marvellous kind, the air so hushed, 

And all her wake-time quiet as a sleep ; 

For now she understood (as such things were) 

How sickness ended very oft in heaven 

Among the unspoken raptures — yet more sick, 

And surelier happy. Then she dropped her lids, 

And, folding up her hands as flowers at night, 

Would lose no moment of the blessed time. 

She lay and seethed in fever many weeks. 

But youth was strong, and overcame the test : 

Revolted soul and flesh were reconciled. 

And fetched back to the necessary day 

And daylight duties. She could creep about 

The long, bare rooms, and stare out drearily 

From any narrow window on the street. 

Till some one who had nursed her as a friend. 

Said coldly to her, as an enemy, 

" She had leave to go next week, beins: well enousfh," 

(While only her heart ached.) "Go next week," thought 

she, 
" Next week ! how would it be with her next week. 
Let out into that terrible street alone 
Among the pushing people . . . to go . . . where ? " 



AURORA LEIGH. II7 

One da}^, the last before the dreaded last, 

Among the convalescents, like herself 

Prepared to go next morning, she sate dumb, 

And heard half absently the women talk, — 

How one was famished for her baby's cheeks, 

" The little wretch would know her ! a year old 

And lively, like his father ; " one was keen 

To get to work, and fill some clamorous mouths ; 

And one was tender for her dear goodman 

Who had missed her sorely ; and one, querulous . . . 

" Would pay backbiting neighbors who had dared 

To talk about her as already dead ; " 

And one was proud ..." and if her sweetheart Luke 

Had left her for a ruddier face than hers 

(The gossip would be seen through at a glance), 

Sweet riddance of such sweethearts — let him hang! 

'Twere good to have been sick for such an end." 

And while they talked, and Marian felt worse 

For having missed the worst of all their wrongs, 

A visitor was ushered through the wards 

And paused among the talkers. " When he looked 

It was as if he spoke, and when he spoke. 

He sang perhaps," said Marian ; "could she tell ? 

She only knew " (so much she had chronicled. 

As seraphs might the making of the sun) 

"That he who came and spake was Romney Leigh, 

And then and there she saw and heard him first." 

And when it was her turn to have the face 

Upon her, all those buzzing pallid lips 

Being satisfied with comfort — when he changed 

To Marian, saying, " And you ? you're going, v/here .'' " 

She, moveless as a worm beneath a stone 

Which some one's stumbling foot has spurned aside. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Writhed suddenly, astonished with the hght, 
And breaking into sobs cried, " Where I go ? 
None asked me till this moment. Can I say 
Where /go, when it has not seemed worth while 
To God himself, who thinks of every one. 
To think of me, and fix where I shall go ? " 

" So yomig," he gently asked her, "you have lost 
Your father and your mother ? " . 

" Both," she said, 
" Both lost ! My father was burnt up with gin 
Or ever I sucked milk, and so is lost. 
My mother sold me to a man last month, 
And so my mother's lost, 'tis manifest. 
And I, who fled from her for miles and miles, 
As if I had caught sight of the fire of hell 
Through some wild gap (she was my mother, sir). 
It seems I shall be lost too presently : 
And so we end, all three of us." 

"Poor child!" 
He said, with such a pity in his voice. 
It soothed her more than her own tears, — " poor child ! 
'Tis simple that betrayal by mother's love 
Should bring despair of God's too. Yet be taught, 
He's better to us than many mothers are. 
And children cannot wander beyond reach 
Of the sweep of his white raiment. Touch and hold ? 
And, if you weep still, weep where John was laid 
While Jesus loved him." 

" She could say the words," 
She told me, " exactly as he uttered them 
A year back, since in any doubt or dark 
They came out like the stars, and shone on her 
With just their comfort. Common words, perhaps 



AURORA LEIGH. IK) 

The ministers in church might say the same ; 
But he, he made the church with what he spoke ; 
The difference was the miracle," said slie. 

Then catching up her smile to ravishment, 
She added quickly, " 1 repeat his words, 
But not his tones : can any one repeat 
The music of an organ out of church ? 
And when he said, ' Poor child ! ' I shut my eyes 
To feel how tenderly his voice broke through. 
As the ointment-box broke on the Holy feet 
To let out the rich medicative nard." 

She told me how he had raised and rescued her 

With reverent pity, as in touching grief 

He touched the wounds of Christ, and made her feel 

More self-respecting. Hope he called belief 

In God ; work, worship : therefore let us pray. 

And thus, to snatch her soul from atheism, 

And keep it stainless from her mother's face. 

He sent her to a famous seamstress-house 

Far off in London, there to work and hope. 

With that they parted. She kept sight of heaven. 

But not of Romney. He had good to do 

To others. Through the days and through the nights 

She sewed and sewed and sewed. She drooped sometimes. 

And wondered, while along the tawny light 

She struck the new thread into her needle's eye. 

How people without mothers on the hills 

Could choose the town to live in ; then she drew 

The stitch, and mused how Romney's face would look, 

And if 'twere likely he'd remember hers 

When they two had their meeting after death. 



120 AURORA LEIGH. 



FOURTH BOOK. 

They met still sooner. 'Twas a year from thence 
That Lucy Gresham — the sick seamstress girl, 
Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick, 
And leant her head upon its back to cough 
More freely, when, the mistress turning round, 
The others took occasion to laugh out — 
Gave up at last. Among the workers spoke 
A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips : 
" You know the news t Who's dying, do you think ? 
Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it 
As little as Nell Hart's wedding, — Blush not, Nell, 
Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks, 
And some day there'll be found a man to dote 
On red curls. Lucy Gresham swooned last night, 
Dropped sudden in the street while going home ; 
And now the baker says, who took her up 
And laid her by her grandmother in bed. 
He'll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk. 
Let's hope he gave her a loaf, too, within reach ; 
For otherwise they'll starve before they die, 
That funny pair of bedfellows ! — Miss Bell, 
"I'll thank you for the scissors. The old crone 
Is paralytic ; that's the reason why 
Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath, 
Which went too quick, we all know. — Marian Erie ! 
Why, Marian Erie, you're not the fool to cry ? 
Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar's new dress. 
You piece of pity ! " 

Marian rose up straight, 
And, breaking through the talk and through the work. 
Went outward, in the face of their surprise, 



AURORA LEIGH. 121 



To Lucy's home, to nurse her back to life 

Or down to death. She knew, by such an act. 

All place and grace were forfeit in the house, 

Whose mistress would supply the missing hand 

With necessary, not inhuman, haste. 

And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues. 

She could not leave a solitary soul 

To founder in the dark, while she sate still 

And lavished stitches on a lady's hem. 

As if no other work were paramount. 

"Why, God," thought Marian, "has a missing hand 

This moment : Lucy wants a drink, perhaps. 

Let others miss me ! never miss me, God ! " 

So Marian sate by Lucy's bed, content 

W^ith duty and was strong, for recompense. 

To hold the lamp of human love arm-high, 

To catch the death-strained eyes, and comfort them. 

Until the angels, on the luminous side 

Of death, had got theirs ready. And she said. 

If Lucy thanked her sometimes, called her kind, 

It touched her strangely. " Marian Erie, called kind ! 

What Marian, beaten and sold, who could not die ! 

'Tis verily good fortune to be kind. 

Ah, you ! " she said, " who are born to such a grace, 

Be sorry for the unlicensed class, the poor, 

Reduced to think the best good fortune means 

That others simply should be kind to them." 

From sleep to sleep when Lucy had slid away 
So gently, like the light upon a hill. 
Of which none names the moment that it goes 
Though all see when 'tis gone, a man came in 
And stood beside the bed. The old idiot wTetch 



122 AURORA LEIGH. 

Screamed feebly, like a baby overlain, 

" Sir, sir, you won't mistake me for the corpse ? 

Don't look at me^ sir ! never bury me! 

Although I lie here, I'm alive as you, 

Except my legs and arms, — I eat and drink 

And understand, — (that you're the gentleman 

Who fits the funerals up, Heaven speed you, sir), 

And certainly I should be livelier still 

If Lucy here . . . sir, Lucy is the corpse . . , 

Had worked more properly to buy me wine ; 

But Lucy, sir, was always slow at work, 

I sha'n't lose much by Lucy. — Marian Erie, 

Speak up, and show the gentleman the corpse." 

And then a voice said, "Marian Erie." She rose; 

It was the hour for angels — there stood hers! 

She scarcely marvelled to see Romney Leigh. 

As light November snows to empty nests. 

As grass to graves, as moss to mildewed stones, 

As July suns to ruins, through the rents, 

As ministering spirits to mourners, through a loss. 

As Heaven itself to men, through pangs of death, 

He came uncalled wherever grief had come. 

" And so," said Marian Erie, " we met anew," 

And added softly, " so, we shall not part." 

He was not angry that she had left the house 
Wherein he placed her. Well, she had feared it might 
Have vexed him. Also, when he found her set 
On keeping, though the dead was out of sight. 
That half-dead, half-live body left behind 
With cankerous heart and flesh, which took your best. 
And cursed you for the little good it did, 
(Could any leave the bed-rid wretch alone, 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 23 



So joyless she was thankless even to God, 
Much more to you ?) he did not say 'twas well, 
Yet Marian thought he did not take it ill, 
Since day by day he came, and every day 
She felt within his utterance and his eyes 
A closer, tenderer presence of the soul, 
Until at last he said, " We shall not part." 

On that same day was Marian's work complete ; 

She had smoothed the empty bed, and swept the floor 

Of coffin sawdust, set the chairs anew 

The dead had ended gossip in, and stood 

In that poor room so cold and orderly, 

The door-key in her hand, prepared to go 

As they had, howbeit not their way. He spoke. 

" Dear Marian, of one clay God made us all ; 
And though men push and poke and paddle in't 
(As children play at fashioning dirt-pies), 
And call their fancies by the name of facts. 
Assuming difference, lordship, privilege. 
When all's plain dirt, they come back to it at last : 
The first grave-digger proves it with a spade, 
And pats all even. Need we wait for this, 
You Marian, and 1 Romney ? " 

She, at that. 
Looked blindly in his face, as when one looks 
Through driving autumn-rains to find the sky. 
He went on speaking : 

*' Marian, I being born 
What men call noble, and you issued from 
The noble people, though the tyrannous sword 
Which pierced Christ's heart has cleft the world in twain 
'Twixt class and class, opposing rich to poor, 



124 AURORA LEIGH. 

Shall we keep parted ? Not so. Let us lean 
And strain together rather, each to each, 
Compress the red lips of this gaping wound 
As far as two souls can, ay, lean and league, — 
I from my superabundance, from your want 
You, — joining in a protest 'gainst the wrong 
On both sides." 

All the rest he held her hand 
In speaking, which confused the sense of much. 
Her heart against his words beat out so thick, 
They might as well be written on the dust 
Where some poor bird, escaping from hawk's beak. 
Has dropped, and beats its shuddering wings, the lines 
Are rubbed so ; yet 'twas something like to this ; 
" That they two, standing at the two extremes 
Of social classes, had received one seal. 
Been dedicate and drawn beyond themselves 
To mercy and ministration, — he, indeed. 
Through what he knew, and she, through what she felt; 
He, by man's conscience, she, by woman's heart. 
Relinquishing their several 'vantage posts 
Of wealthy ease and honorable toil, 
To work with God at love. And since God willed, 
That, putting out his hand to touch this ark. 
He found a woman's hand there, he'd accept 
The sign too, hold the tender fingers fast, 
And say, ' My fellow-worker, be my wife ! ' " 

She told the tale with simple, rustic turns. 
Strong leaps of meaning in her sudden eyes 
That took the gaps of any imperfect phrase 
Of the unschooled speaker : I have rather writ 
The thing I understood so than the thing 
I heard so. And I cannot render right 



AURORA LEIGH. 1^5 



Her quick gesticulation, wild yet soft, 
Self-startled from the habitual mood she used, 
Half sad, half languid, — like dumb creatures (now 
A rustling bird, and now a wandering deer. 
Or squirrel 'gainst the oak-gloom flashing up 
His sidelong, burnished head, in just her way 
Of savage spontaneity), that stir 
Abruptly the green silence of the woods, 
And make it stranger, holier, more profound ; 
As Nature's general heart confessed itself 
Of life, and then fell backward on repose. 

I kissed the lips that ended. " So, indeed, 
He loves you, Marian ? " 

" Loves me ! " She looked up 
With a child's wonder when you ask him first 
Who made the sun, — a puzzled blush, that grew, 
Then broke off in a rapid, radiant smile 
Of sure solution. " Loves me ! He loves all. 
And me, of course. He had not asked me else 
To work with him forever, and be his wife." 

Her words reproved me. This, perhaps, was love, — 

To have its hands too full of gifts to give. 

For putting out a hand to take a gift ; 

To love so much, the perfect round of love 

Includes in strict conclusion being loved ; 

As Eden-dew went up, and fell again. 

Enough for watering Eden. Obviously 

She had not thought about his love at all. 

The cataracts of her soul had poured themselves. 

And risen self-crowned in rainbow : would she ask 

Who crowned her ? It sufficed that she was crowned. 

With women of my class 'tis otherwise : 



126 AURORA LEIGH. 



We haggle for the small change of our gold, 
And so much love accord for so much love, 
Rialto-prices. Are we therefore wrong ? 
If marriage be a contract, look to it then, 
Contracting parties should be equal, just ; 
But if a simple fealty on one side, 
A mere religion, right to give, is all. 
And certain brides of Europe duly ask 
To mount the pile as Indian widows do. 
The spices of their tender youth heaped up, 
The jewels of their gracious virtues worn, 
More gems, more glory, to consume entire 
For a living husband : as the man's alive, 
Not dead, the woman's duty by so much 
Advanced in England beyond Hindostan. 

I sate there musing, till she touched my hand 

With hers, as softly as a strange white bird 

She feared to startle in touching. " You are kind 

But are you, peradventure, vexed at heart 

Because your cousin takes me for a wife ? 

I know I am not worthy — nay, in truth, 

I'm glad on't, since, for that, he chooses me. 

He likes the poor things of the world the best ; 

I would not, therefore, if I could, be rich. 

It pleasures him to stoop for buttercups. 

I would not be a rose upon the wall 

A queen might stop at, near the palace-door. 

To say to a courtier, ' Pluck that rose for me : 

It's prettier than the rest.' O Romney Leigh ! 

I'd rather far be trodden by his foot 

Than lie in a great queen's bosom." 

Out of breath, 
She paused. 



AURORA LEIGH. 12/ 

" Sweet Marian, do you disavow 
The roses widi diat face ? " 

She dropt her head 
As if the wind had caught that flower of her 
And bent it in the garden, then looked up 
With grave assurance. "Well, you think me bold ; 
But so we all are, when we're praying God. 
And if I'm bold, yet, lady, credit me, 
That since I know myself for what I am, — 
Much fitter for his handmaid than his wife. — 
I'll prove the handmaid and the wife at once. 
Serve tenderly, and love obediently. 
And be a worthier mate, perhaps, than some 
Who are wooed in silk among their learned books ; 
While I shall set myself to read his eyes. 
Till such grow plainer to me than the French 
To wisest ladies. Do you think I'll miss 
A letter in the spelling of his mind ? 
No more than they do when they sit and write 
Their flying words with flickering wild-fowl tails, 
Nor ever pause to find how many /s, 
Should that be y or /, they know't so well : 
I've seen them writing, when I brought a dress 
And waited, floating out their soft white hands 
On shining paper. But they're hard sometimes. 
For all those hands. We've used out many nights, 
And worn the yellow daylight into shreds 
Which flapped and shivered down our aching eyes 
Till night appeared more tolerable, just 
That pretty ladies might look beautiful. 
Who said at last . . . ' You're lazy in that house 1 
You're slow in sending home the work : I count 
I've waited near an hour for't.' Pardon me, 
I do not blame them, madam, nor misprise : 



128 AURORA LEIGH. 

They are fair and gracious ; ay, but not like you, 
Since none but you has Mister Leigh's own blood, 
Both noble and gentle, — and without it . . . well, 
They are fair, I said ; so fair, it scarce seems strange 
That flashing out in any looking-glass 
The wonder of their glorious brows and breasts, 
They're charmed so, they forget to look behind, 
And mark how pale we've grown, we pitiful 
Remainders of the world. And so perhaps 
If Mister Leigh had chosen a wife from these, 
She might, although he's better than her best. 
And dearly she would know^ it, steal a thought 
Which should be all his, an eye-glance from his face. 
To plunge into the mirror opposite 
I n search of her own beauty's pearl ; while / . . . 
Ah, dearest lady, serge will outweigh silk 
For winter-wear, when bodies feel a-cold. 
And I'll be a true wife to your Cousin Leigh." 

Before I answered, he was there himself. 
I think he had been standing in the room, 
And listened probably to half her talk. 
Arrested, turned to stone, — as white as stone. 
Will tender sayings make men look so white ? 
He loves her then profoundly. 

'•You are here, 
Aurora ? Here I meet you ! " We clasped hands. 

" Even so, dear Romney, Lady Waldemar 
Has sent me in haste to find a cousin of mine 
Who shall be." 

" Lady Waldemar is good." 

" Here's one, at least, who is good," I sighed, and touched 
Poor Marian's happy head, as dog-like she, 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 29 



Most passionately patient, waited on, 
A-tremble for her turn of greeting words ; 
" I've sate a full hour with your INIarian Erie, 
And learnt the thing by heart, and from my heart 
Am therefore competent to give you thanks 
For such a cousin." 

" You accept at last 
A gift from me, Aurora, without scorn ? 
At last I please you ? " How his Voice was changed ! 
" You cannot please a woman against her will, 
And once you vexed me. Shall we speak of that ? 
We'll say, then, you were noble in it all, 
And I not ignorant — let it pass ! And now 
You please me, Romney, when you please yourself : 
So, please you, be fanatical in love, 
And I'm well pleased. Ah, cousin ! at the old hall. 
Among the gallery portraits of our Leighs, 
We shall not find a sweeter signory 
Than this pure forehead's." 

Not a word he said. 
How arrogant men are ! Even philanthropists — 
Who try to take a wife up in the way 
They put down a subscription-check, if once 
She turns, and says, " I will not tax you so. 
Most charitable sir " — feel ill at ease, 
As though she had wronged them somehow. I suppose 
We women should remember what we are, 
And not throw back an obolus inscribed 
With Caesar's image lightly. I resumed. 

" It strikes me, some of those sublime Vandykes 
Were not too proud to make good saints in heaven ; 
And, if so, then they're not too proud to-day 
To bow down (now the ruffs are off their necks) 



130 AURORA LEIGH. 

And own this good, true, noble Marian, yours, 

And mine, I'll say ! For poets (bear the word), 

Half poets even, are still whole democrats, — 

Oh, not that we're disloyal to the high, 

But loyal to the low, and cognizant 

Of the less scrutable majesties. For me, 

I comprehend your choice, I justify 

Your right in choosing." 

" No, no, no ! " he sighed, 
With a sort of melancholy impatient scorn. 
As some grown man who never had a child 
Puts by some child who plays at being a man, 
" You did not, do not, can not comprehend 
My choice, my ends, my motives, nor myself : 
No matter now — we'll let it pass, you say. 
I thank you for 3'our generous cousinship 
Which helps this present : I accept for her 
Your favorable thoughts. We're fallen on days, 
We two who are not poets, when to wed 
Requires less mutual love than common love . 
For two together to bear out at once 
Upon the loveless many. Work in pairs, 
In galley-couplings or in marriage-rings. 
The difference lies in the honor, not the work, — 
And such w-e're bound to, I and she. But love 
(You poets are benighted in this age. 
The hour's too late for catching even moths. 
You've gnats instead), love ! — love's fool-paradise 
Is out of date, like Adam's. Set a swan 
To swim the Trenton rather than true love 
To float its fabulous plumage safely down 
The cataracts of this loud transition-time. 
Whose roar forever henceforth in my ears 
Must keep me deaf to music." 



/ 



AURORA LEIGH. 131 

There, I turned 
And kissed poor Marian, out of discontent. 
The man had baffled, chafed me, till I flung 
For refuge to the woman, as sometimes, 
Impatient of some crowded room's close smell. 
You throw a window open, and lean out 
To breathe a long breath in the dewy night, 
And cool your angry forehead. She, at least. 
Was not built up as walls are, brick by brick. 
Each fancy squared, each feeling ranged by line. 
The very heat of burning youth applied 
To indurate form and system ! excellent bricks, 
A well-built wall, which stops you on the' road, 
And into which you cannot see an inch 
Although you beat your head against it — pshaw ! 

" Adieu," I said, " lor this time, cousins both 

And Cousin Romney, pardon me the word. 

Be happy, — oh ! in some esoteric sense 

Of course, — I mean no harm in wishing web. 

Adieu, my Marian. May she come to me. 

Dear Romney, and be married from my house ? 

It is not part of your philosophy 

To keep your bird upon the black thorn ? " 

''Ay," 
He answered ; "but it is. I take my wife 
Directly from the people ; and she comes. 
As Austria's daughter to imperial France, 
Betwixt her eagles, blinking not her race, 
From Margaret's Court at garret-height, to meet 
And wed me at St. James', nor put off 
Her gown of serge for that. The things we do. 
We do : we'll wear no mask, as if we blushed." 



132 AURORA LEIGH. 

" Dear Romney, you're the poet," I replied, 

But felt my smile too mournful for my word, 

And turned and went. Ay, masks, I thought, — beware 

Of tragic masks we tie before the glass. 

Uplifted on the cothurn half a yard 

Above the natural stature ! we would play 

Heroic parts to ourselves, and end, perhaps 

As impotently as Athenian wives 

Who shrieked in lits at the Eumenides. 

His foot pursued me down the stair. " At least 

You'll suffer me to walk with you beyond 

These hideous streets, these graves, where men alive 

Packed close with earthworms, burr unconsciously 

About the plague that, slew them : let me go. 

The very women pelt their souls in mud 

At any woman who walks here alone. 

How came you here alone? — you are ignorant 

We had a strange and melancholy walk : 

The night came drizzling downward in dark rain. 

And as we walked, the color of the time. 

The act, the presence, my hand upon his arm, 

His voice in my ear, and mine to my own sense, 

Appeared unnatural. We talked modern books 

And daily papers, Spanish marriage-schemes 

And English climate — was't so cold last year? 

And will the wind change by to-morrow morn ? 

Can Guizot stand ? is London full ? is trade 

Competitive ? has Dickens turned his hinge 

A-pinch upon the fingers of the great ? 

And are potatoes to grow mythical 

Like moly ? will the apple die out too ? 

Which way is the wind to-night ? southeast ? due east ? 



AURORA LEIGH. 133 



We talked on fast, while every common word 
Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end, 
And ready to pull down upon our heads 
A terror out of sight. And yet to pause 
Were surelier mortal : we tore greedily up 
All silence, all the innocent breathing-points, 
As if, like pale conspirators in haste. 
We tore up papers where our signatures 
Imperilled us to an ugly shame or death. 

I cannot tell you why it was. 'Tis plain 
We had not loved nor hated : wherefore dread 
To spill gunpowder on ground safe from fire ? 
Perhaps we had lived too closely to diverge 
So absolutely: leave two clocks, they say, 
Wound up to different hours, upon one shelf. 
And slowly, through the interior wheels of each 
The blind mechanic motion sets itself 
A-throb to feel out for the mutual time. 
It was not so with us, indeed : while he 
Struck midnight, I kept striking six at dawn; 
W^hile he marked judgment, I, redemption-day : 
And such exception to a general law 
Imperious upon inert matter even, 
Might make us, each to either, insecure, 
A beckoning mystery, or a troubling fear, 

I mind me, when we parted at the door, 

How strange his good-night sounded, — like good-night 

Beside a deathbed, where the morrow's sun 

Is sure to come too late for more good days. 

And all that night I thought ..." Good-night," said he. 

And so a month passed. Let me set it down 

At once, — I have been wrong, I have been wrong. 



134 AURORA LEIGH. 

We are wrong always when we think too much 

Of what we think or are : albeit our thoughts 

Be verily bitter as self-sacrifice, 

We're no less selfish. If we sleep on rocks 

Or roses, sleeping past the hour of noon, 

We're lazy. This I write against myself. 

I had done a duty in the visit paid 

To Marian, and was ready otherwise 

To give the witness of my presence and name 

Whenever she should marry. Which, I though 

Sufficed. I even had cast into the scale 

An overweight of justice toward the match. 

The Lady Waldemar had missed her tool, 

And broken it in the lock as being too straight 

For a crooked purpose ; while poor Marian Erie 

Missed nothing in my accents or my acts : 

I had not been ungenerous on the whole, 

Nor yet untender : so enough. I felt 

Tired, overworked : this marriage somewhat jarred ; 

Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise. 

The pricking of the map of life with pins, 

In schemes of ... " Here we'll go," and " There we'll 

stay," 
And " Everywhere we'll prosper in our love,'* 
Was scarce my business : let them order it : 
Who else should care ? I threw myself aside. 
As one who had done her work, and shut her eyes 
To rest the better. 

I, who should have known, 
Forereckoned mischief ! Where we disavow 
Being keeper to our brother, we're his Cain, 

I might have held that poor child to my heart 
A little longer ! 'twould have hurt me much 



AURORA LEIGH. 135 

To have hastened by its beats the marriage-day, 

And kept her safe meantime from tampering hands, 

Or, peradventure, traps. What drew me back 

From telling Romney plainly the designs 

Of Lady Waldemar, as spoken out 

To me . . . me ? had I any right, ay, right. 

With womanly compassion and reserve 

To break the fall of woman's impudence ? — 

To stand by calmly, knowing what I knew. 

And hear him call her good ? 

Distrust that word. 
"There is none good save God," said Jesus Christ. 
If he once, in the first creation-week. 
Called creatures good, forever afterward. 
The Devil only has done it, and his heirs, 
Th^ knaves who win so, and the fools who lose : 
The word's grown dangerous. In the middle age 
I think they called malignant fays and imps 
Good people. A good neighbor, even in this, 
Is fatal sometimes, cuts your morning up 
To mince-meat of the very smallest talk. 
Then helps to sugar her bohea at night 
With your reputation. I have known good wives. 
As chaste, or nearly so, as Potiphar's ; 
And good, good mothers, who would use a child 
To better an intrigue ; good friends, beside, 
(Very good) who hung succinctly round your neck 
And sucked your breath, as cats are fabled to do 
By sleeping infants. And we all have known 
Good critics who have stamped out poet's hope, 
Good statesmen who pulled ruin on the state. 
Good patriots who for a theory risked a cause. 
Good kings who disembowelled for a tax. 
Good popes who brought all good to jeopardy. 



136 AURORA LEIGH. 



Good Christians who sate still in easy-chairs 
And damned the general world for standing up. 
Now may the good God pardon all good men ! 

How bitterly I speak ! how certainly 
I The innocent white milk in us is turned 

By much persistent shining of the sun ! \ 
/Shake up the sweetest in us long enough \ 

With men, it drops to foolish curd, too sourX 
XTo feed the most untender of Christ's lambs. 

I should have thought, — a woman of the world 

Like her I'm meaning, centre to herself 

Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life 

In isolated self-love and self-will, 

As a windmill seen at distance radiating 

Its delicate white vans against the sky, 

So soft and soundless, simply beautiful, 

Seen nearer, — what a roar and tear it makes, 

How it grinds and bruises ! — if she loves at last, 

Her love's a readjustment of self-love. 

No more, — a need felt of another's use 

To her one advantage, as the mill wants grain, 

The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey. 

And none of these is more unscrupulous 

Than such a charming woman when she loves. 

She'll not be thwarted by an obstacle 

So trifling as . . . her soul is . . . much less yours 

Is God a consideration ? — she loves you, 

Not God : she will not flinch for him indeed : 

She did not for the Marchioness of Perth, 

When wan^ting tickets for the fancy ball. 

She loves you, sir, with passion, to lunacy. 

She loves you like her diamonds . . . almost. 



AURORA LEIGH. 137 



Well, 
A month passed so, and then the notice came, 
On such a day the marriage at the church. 
I was not backward. 

Half Saint Giles in frieze 
Was bidden to meet Saint James in cloth-of-gold, 
And, after contract at the altar, pass 
To eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath. 
Of course the people came in uncompelled, 
Lame, blind, and worse ; sick, sorrowful, and worse ; 
The humors of the peccant social w'ound 
All pressed out, poured down upon Pimlico, 
Exasperating the unaccustomed air 
With a hideous interfusion. You'd suppose 
A finished generation, dead of plague, 
Swept outward from their graves into the sun, 
The moil of death upon them. What a sight ! 
A holiday of miserable men 
Is sadder than a burial-day of kings. 

They clogged the streets, they oozed into the church 

In a dark, slow stream, like blood. To see that sight, 

The noble ladies stood up in their pews. 

Some pale for fear, a few as red for hate, 

Some simply curious, some just insolent, 

And some in wondering scorn, "What next? what next?" 

These crushed their delicate rose lips from the smile 

That misbecame them in a holy place, 

With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs ; 

Those passed the salts, with confidence of eyes, 

And simultaneous shiver of moire silk ; 

While all the aisles, alive and black with heads, 

Crawled slowly toward the altar from the street, 

As bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a hole 



138 AURORA LEIGH. 

With shuddering involution, swaying slow 

From right to left, and then from left to right, 

In pants and pauses. What an ugly crest 

Of faces rose upon you everywhere 

From that crammed mass ! you did not usually 

See faces like them in the open day : 

They hide in cellars, not to make you mad 

As Romney Leigh is. Faces ! O my God, 

We call those faces ? — men's and women's ... ay, 

And children's ; babies, hanging like a rag 

Forgotten on their mother's neck — poor mouths. 

Wiped clean of mother's milk by mother's blow 

Before they are taught her cursing. Faces ? . . . phew. 

We'll call them vices, festering to despairs, 

Or sorrows, petrifying to vices : not 

A finger-touch of God left whole on them, 

All ruined, lost, the countenance worn out 

As the garment, the will dissolute as the act, 

The passions loose and draggling in the dirt. 

To trip a foot up at the first free step ! 

Those faces ? — 'twas as if you had stirred up hell 

To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost 

In fiery swirls of slime, such strangled fronts, 

Such obdurate jaws, were thrown up constantly 

To twit you with your race, corrupt your blood, 

And grind to devilish colors all your dreams 

Henceforth, though haply you should drop asleep 

By clink of silver waters, in a muse 

On Raffael's mild Madonna of the Bird. 

I've waked and slept through many nights and days 

Since then ; but still that day will catch my breath 

Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed. 

In which the fibrous years have taken root 



AURORA LEIGH. 139 



So deeply, that they quiver to their tops 
Whene'er you stir the dust of such a day. 

My cousin met me with his eyes and hand, 

And then, with just a word, . . . that " Marian Erie 

Was coming with her bridesmaids presently," 

Made haste to place me by the altar-stair 

Where he and other noble gentlemen 

And high-born ladies waited for the bride. 

We waited. It was early : there was time 
Por greeting and the morning's compliment ; 
And gradually a ripple of women's talk 
Arose and fell, and tossed about a spray 
Of English j-s, soft as a silent hush, 
And, notwithstanding, quite as audible 
As louder phrases thrown out by the men. 

— " Yes, really, if we need to wait in church 
We need to talk there." — " She ? 'tis Lady Ayr, 
In blue, not purple ! that's the dowager." 

" She looks as young " — " She flirts as young, you mean. 

Why, if you had seen her upon Thursday night, 

You'd call Miss Norris modest." — "K?w again ! 

I waltzed with you three hours back. Up at six, 

Up still at ten ; scarce time to change one's shoes 

I feel as white and sulky as a ghost. 

So pray don't speak to me. Lord Belcher." — " No, 

I'll look at you instead, and it's enough 

While you have that face." — " In church, my lord ! fie ! fie ! " 

— '• Adair, you staid for the Division ? " — " Lost 
By one." — " The devil it is ! I'm sorry for't. 
And if I had not promised Mistress Grove "... 
" You might have kept your word to Liverpool." 

— " Constituents must remember, after all. 



140 AURORA LEIGH. 



We're mortal." — "We remind them of it." — "Hark, 
The bride comes ! here she comes in a stream of milk ! " 

" There ? Dear, you are asleep still : don't you know 

The five Miss Granvilles ? always dressed in white 

To show they're ready to be married." " Lower ! 

The aunt is at your elbow." — " Lady Maud, 

Did Lady Waldemar tell you she had seen 

This o-irl of Leidi's ? " — "No — wait i 'twas Mistress Brookes 

Who told me Lady Waldemar told her — 

No, 'twasn't Mistress Brookes." — " She's pretty ? " — " Who ? 

Mistress Brookes ? Lady Waldemar ? " — " How hot ! 

Pray is't the law to-day we're not to breathe ? 

You're treading on my shawl — I thank you, sir." 

— "They say the bride's a mere child, who can't read, 
But knows the things she shouldn't, with wide-awake 
Great eyes. I'd go through fire to look at her." 

— " You do, I think." — " And Lady Waldemar 
(You see her ; sitting close to Romney Leigh. 
How beautiful she looks, a little flushed !) 

Has taken up the girl, and methodized 
Leigh's folly. Should I have come here, you suppose. 
Except she'd ask me ?" — " She'd have served him more 
By marrying him herself." 

" Ah — there she comes. 
The bride, at last ! " 

" Indeed, no. Past eleven. 
She puts off her patched petticoat to-day 
And puts on May-fair manners, so begins 
By setting us to wait." — " Yes, yes, this Leigh 
Was always odd : it's in the blood, I think. 
His father's uncle's cousin's second son 
Was, was . . . you understand me : and for him, 
He's stark — has turned quite lunatic upon 
This modern question of the poor — the poor. 



AURORA LEIGH. UI 



An excellent subject when you're moderate. 

You've seen Prince Albert's model lodging-house ? 

Does honor to his Royal Highness. Good ! 

But would he stop his carriage in Cheapside 

To shake a common fellow by the fist 

Whose name was . . . Shakspeare ? no. We draw a hne ; 

And if we stand not by our order, we 

In England, we fall headlong. Here's a sight, — 

A hideous sight, a most indecent sight ! 

My wife would come, sir, or I had kept her back. 

By heaven, sir, when poor Damiens' trunk and hmbs 

Were torn by horses, women of the court 

Stood by and stared exactly as to-day 

On this dismembering of society, 

With pretty, troubled faces." 

" Now, at last. 

She comes now." 

" Where ? who sees ? you push me, sir, 

Beyond the point of what is mannerly. 

You're standing, madam, on my second flounce. 

I do beseech you "... 

u ;^Q — it's not the bride. 

Half-past eleven. How late ! The bridegoom, mark, 
Gets anxious and goes out." 

" And, as I said. 
These Leighs ! our best blood running in the rut ! 
It's something awful. We had pardoned him 
A simple misalliance got up aside 
For a pair of sky-blue eyes : the House of Lords 
Has winked at such things, and we've all been young. 
But here's an intermarriage reasoned out, 
A contract (carried boldly to the light 
To challenge observation, pioneer 
Good acts by a great example) 'twixt the extremes 



142 AURORA LEIGH. 

Of martyrized society ; — on the left 

The well-born, on the right the merest mob, 

To treat as equals ! — 'tis anarchical ; 

It means more than it says ; 'tis damnable. 

Why, sir, we can't have even our coffee good, 

Unless we strain it." 

" Here, Miss Leigh ! " 

"Lord Howe, 
You're Romney's friend. What's all this waiting for t " 

" I cannot tell. The bride has lost her head 
(And way, perhaps) to prove her sympathy 
With the bridegroom." 

" What, — you also disapprove ! " 

" Oh, /approve of nothing in the world," 
He answered, " not of you, still less of me, 
Nor even of Romney, though he's worth us both. 
We're all gone wrong. The tune in us is lost ; 
And whistling down back alleys to the moon 
Will never catch it." 

Let me draw Lord Howe. 
A born aristocrat, bred radical. 
And educated socialist, who still 
Goes floating, on traditions of his kind. 
Across the theoretic flood from France, 
Though, like a drenched Noah on a rotten deck, 
Scarce safer for his place there. He, at least. 
Will never land on Ararat, he knows, 
To recommence the world on the new plan : 
Indeed, he thinks said world had better end. 
He sympathizes rather with the fish 
Outside than with the drowned paired beasts within, 
Who cannot couple again or multiply, — 



AURORA LEIGH. 143 

And that's the sort of Noah he is, Lord Howe. 

He never could be anything complete, 

Except a loyal, upright gentleman, 

A liberal landlord, graceful diner-out, 

And entertainer more than hospitable, 

Whom authors dine with, and forget the hock. 

Whatever he believes, and it is much. 

But nowise certain, now here and now there, 

He still has sympathies beyond his creed 

Diverting him from action. In the House 

No party counts upon him, while for all 

His speeches have a noticeable weight. 

Men like his books, too (he has written books), 

Which, safe to lie beside a bishop's chair. 

At times outreach themselves with jets of fire 

At which the foremost of the progressists 

May warm audacious hands in passing by. 

Of stature over-tall, lounging for ease ; 

Light hair, that seems to carry a wind in it ; 

And eyes, that, when they look on you, will lean 

Their whole weight, half in indolence, and half 

In wishing you unmitigated good, 

Until you know not if to flinch from him. 

Or thank him. — 'Tis Lord Howe. 

" We're all gone wrong," 
Said he ; " and Romney, that dear friend of ours, 
Is nowise right. There's one true thing on earth. 
That's love : he takes it up, and dresses it, 
And acts a play with it, as Hamlet did, 
To show what cruel uncles we have been, 
•And how we should be uneasy in our minds, 
While he. Prince Hamlet, weds a pretty maid 
(Who keeps us too long waiting, we'll confess) 
By symbol to instruct us formally, 



144 AURORA LEIGH. 

To fill the ditches up 'twixt class and class, 

And live together in phalansteries. 

What then ? — he's mad, our Hamlet ! clap his play. 

And bind him." 

" Ah, Lord Howe ! this spectacle 
Pulls stronger at us than the Dane's. See there ! 
The crammed aisles heave and strain and steam with life. 
Dear Heaven, what life ! " 

" Why, yes, — a poet sees ; 
Which makes him different from a common man. 
I, too, see somewhat, though I cannot sing • 
I should have been a poet, only that 
My mother took fright at the ugly world, 
And bore me tongue-tied. If you'll grant me now 
That Romney gives us a fine actor-piece 
To make us merry on his marriage morn. 
The fable's worse than Hamlet's, I'll concede. 
The terrible people, old and poor and blind, 
Their eyes eat out with plague and poverty 
From seeing beautiful and cheerful sights, 
We'll liken to a brutalized King Lear, 
Led out, — by no means to clear scores with wrongs, — 
His wrongs are so far back, he has forgot 
(All's past like youth), but just to witness here 
A simple contract, he upon his side. 
And Regan with her sister Goneril 
And all the dappled courtiers and court-fools. 
On their side. Not that any of these would say 
They're sorry, neither. What is done is done, 
And violence is now turned privilege. 
As cream turns cheese, if buried long enough 
What could such lovely ladies have to do 
With the old man there in those ill-odorous rags, 
Except to keep the wind-side of him ? Lear 



AURORA LEIGH. 145 

Is flat and quiet as a decent grave : 

He does not curse his daughters in the least. 

Be these his daughters ? Lear is thinking of 

His porridge chiefly ... is it getting cold 

At Hampstead t will the ale be served in pots ? 

Poor Lear, poor daughters ! Bravo, Romney's play." 



A murmur and a movement drew around ; 

A naked whisper touched us. Something wrong ! 

What's wrong ? The black crowd, as an overstrained 

Cord, quivered in vibration, and I saw . . . 

Was that his face I saw ? . . . his . . . Romney Leigh's 

Which tossed a sudden horror like a sponge 

Into all eyes, while himself stood white upon 

The topmost altar-stair, and tried to speak. 

And failed, and lifted higher above his head 

A letter ... as a man who drowns and gasps. 

" My brothers, bear with me ! I am very weak. 

I meant but only good. Perhaps I meant 

Too proudly, and God snatched the circumstance, 

And changed it therefore. There's no marriage — none, 

She leaves me, — she departs, — she disappears, 

I lose her. Yet I never forced her ' ay,' 

To have her ' no ' so cast into my teeth 

In manner of an accusation, thus. 

My friends, you are dismissed. Go, eat and drink 

According to the programme — and farewell ! " 

He ended. There was silence in the church. 

We heard a baby sucking in its sleep 

At the farthest end of the aisle. Then spoke a man, 

" Now, look to it, coves, that all the beef and drink 

Be not filched from us, like the other fun ; 

For beer's spilt easier than a woman's lost ! 



146 AURORA LEIGH. 

This gentry is not honest with the poor : 

They bring us up, to trick us " — " Go it, Jim ! " 

A woman screamed back. " I'm a tender soul ; 

I never banged a child at two years old, 

And drew blood from him, but I sobbed for it 

Next moment, and I've had a plague of seven. 

I'm tender : I've no stomach even for beef, 

Until I know about the girl that's lost. 

That's killed mayhap. I did misdoubt at first, 

The fine lord meant no good by her or us. 

He, maybe, got the upper hand of her 

By holding up a wedding-ring, and then . . . 

A choking finger on her throat last night. 

And just a clever tale to keep us still. 

As she is, poor lost innocent. ' Disappear ! ' 

Who ever disappears, except a ghost ? 

And who believes a story of a ghost ? 

I ask you, would a girl go off, instead 

Of staying to be married ? A fine tale ! 

A wicked man, I say, a wicked man ! 

For my part I would rather starve on gin 

Than make my dinner on his beef and beer." 

At which a cry rose up, " We'll have our rights. 

We'll have the girl, the girl ! Your ladies there 

Are married safely and smoothly every day. 

And she shall not drop through into a trap 

Because she's poor and of the people. Shame ! 

We'll have no tricks played off by gentle folks. 

We'll see her righted." 

Through the rage and roar 
I heard the broken words which Romney flung 
Among the turbulent masses, from the ground 
He held still with his masterful pale face. 
As huntsmen throw the ration to the pack, 



AURORA LEIGH. 147 

Who, falling on it headlong, dog on dog. 
In heaps of fury, rend it, swallow it up 
With yelling hound-jaws, — his indignant words, 
His suppliant words, his most pathetic words, 
Whereof I caught the meaning here and there 
By his gesture . . . torn in morsels, yelled across. 
And so devoured. From end to end, the church 
Rocked round us like the sea in storm, and then 
Broke up like the earth in earthquake. Men cried out, 
" Police ! " and women stood, and shrieked for God, 
Or dropt and swooned ; or, like a herd of deer, 
(For whom the black woods suddenly grow alive, 
Unleashing their wild shadows down the wind 
To hunt the creatures into corners, back 
And forward), madly fled, or blindly fell, 
Trod screeching underneath the feet of those 
Who fled and screeched. 

The last sight left to me 
Was Romney's terrible calm face above 
The tumult. The last sound was, " Pull him down ! 
Strike — kill him ! " Stretching my unreasoning arms. 
As men in dreams, who vainly interpose 
'Twixt gods and their undoing, with a cry 
I struggled to precipitate myself 
Headforemost to the rescue of my soul 
In that white face . . . till some one caught me back. 
And so the world went out, — I felt no more. 

W^hat followed was told after by Lord Howe, 
Who bore me senseless from the strangling crowd 
In church and street, and then returned alone 
To see the tumult quelled. The men of law 
Had fallen as thunder on a roaring fire, 



148 " AURORA LEIGH. 

And made all silent, while the people's smoke 
Passed eddying slowly from the emptied aisles. 

Here's Marian's letter, which a ragged child 
Brought running, just as Romney at the porch 
Looked out expectant of the bride. He sent 
The letter to me by his friend, Lord Howe, 
Some two hours after, folded in a sheet 
On which his well-known hand had left a word. 
Here's Marian's letter. 

" Noble friend, dear saint, 
Be patient with me. Never think me vile, 
Who might to-morrow morning be your wife 
But that I loved you more than such a name. 
Farewell, my Romney. Let me write it once, — 
My Romney. 

" 'Tis so pretty a coupled word, 
I have no heart to pluck it with a blot. 
We say, ' My God ' sometimes, upon our knees, 
Who is not therefore vexed : so bear with it . . . 
And me. I know I'm foolish, weak, and vain ; 
Yet most of all I'm angry with myself 
For losing your last footstep on the stair 
The last time of your coming, — yesterday ! 
The very first time I lost step of yours 
(Its sweetness comes the next to what you speak), 
But yesterday sobs took me by the throat 
And cut me off from music. 

" Mister Leigh, 
You'll set me down as wrong in many things. 
You've praised me, sir, for truth — and now you'll learn 
I had not courage to be rightly true. 
I once began to tell you how she came. 
The woman . . . and you stared upon the floor 



AURORA LEIGH. 149 

In cne of your fixed thoughts . . . which put me out 

For that day. After, some one spoke of me 

So wisely, and of you so tenderly, 

Persuading me to silence for your sake . . . 

Well, well ! it seems this moment I was wrong 

In keeping back from telling you the truth : 

There might be truth betwixt us two, at least. 

If nothing else. And yet 'twas dangerous. 

Suppose a real angel came from heaven 

To live with men and women ! he'd go mad, 

If no considerate hand should tie a bUnd 

Across his piercing eyes. 'Tis thus with you : 

You see. us too much in 5^our heavenly light. 

I always thought so, angel, and indeed 

There's danger that you beat yourself to death 

Against the edges of this alien world, 

In some divine and fluttering pity. 

" Yes, 
It would be dreadful for a friend of yours 
To see all England thrust you out of doors, 
And mock you from the windows. You might say, 
Or think (that's worse), ' There's some one in the house 
I miss and love still.' Dreadful ! 

" Very kind, 
I pray you, mark, was Lady Waldemar. 
She came to see me nine times, rather ten — 
So beautiful, she hurts one like the day 
Let suddenly on sick eyes. 

" Most kind of all, 
Your cousin — ah, most like you ! Ere you came 
She kissed me mouth to mouth : I felt her soul 
Dip through her serious lips in holy fire. 
God help me ; but it made me arrogant. 
I almost told her that you would not lose 



I50 AURORA LEIGH. 



By taking me to wife ; tliough ever since 

I've pondered much a certain thing she asked . 

* He loves you, Marian ?' ... in a sort of mild 

Derisive sadness ... as a mother asks 

Her babe, ' You'll touch that star, you think ? ' 



Farewell ! 



I know I never touched it. 

" This is worst : 
Babes grow, and lose the hope of things above : 
A silver threepence sets them leaping high — 
But no more stars ! mark that. 

"I've writ all night, 
Yet told you nothing. God, if I could die, 
And let this letter break off innocent 
Just here ! But no — for your sake . . . 

" Here's the last 
I never could be happy as your wife, 
I never could be harmless as your friend, 
I never will look more into your face 
Till God says, ' Look ! ' I charge you seek me not, 
Nor vex yourself with lamentable thoughts 
That peradventure I have come to grief ; 
Be sure I'm well, I'm merry, I'm at ease. 
But such a long way, long way, long way off, 
I think you'll find me sooner in my grave. 
And that's my choice, observe. For what remains. 
An over-generous friend will care for me. 
And keep me happy . . . happier . . . 

" There's a blot ! 
This ink runs thick . . . we light girls lightly weep . . 
And keep me happier . . . was the thing to say. 
Than as your wife I could be. — Oh, my star. 
My saint, my soul ! for surely you're my soul. 
Through whom God touched me ! I am not so lost 



AURORA LEIGH. 151 

I cannot thank you for the good you did, 

The tears you stopped, which fell down bitterly 

Like these — the times you made me weep for joy 

At hoping I should learn to write your notes, 

And save the tiring of your eyes at night 

And most for that sweet thrice you kissed my lips. 

Saying, ' Dear Marian.' 

"Twould be hard to read, 
This letter, for a reader half as learned ; 
But you'll be sure to master it in spite 
Of ups and downs. My hand shakes, I am blind ; 
I'm poor at writing at the best — and yet 
I tried to make my^s the way you showed. 
Farewell 1 Christ love you. Say, ' Poor Marian ! ' now." 

Poor Marian ! — wanton Marian ! — was it so. 

Or so ? For days, her touching, foolish lines 

We mused on with conjectural fantasy. 

As if some riddle of a summer-cloud 

On which one tries unlike similitudes, 

Of now a spotted hydra-skin cast off. 

And now a screen of carven ivory 

That shuts the heavens' conventual secrets up 

From mortals over-bold. We sought the sense 

She loved him so, perhaps (such words mean love), 

That, worked on by some shrewd, perfidious tongue 

(And then I thought of Lady Waldemar), 

She left him not to hurt him ; or perhaps 

She loved one in her class ; or did not love. 

But mused upon her wild, bad, tramping life. 

Until the free blood fluttered at her heart, 

And black bread eaten by the roadside hedge 

Seemed sweeter than being put to Romney's school 

Of philanthropical self-sacrifice 



152 AURORA LEIGH. 

Irrevocably. Girls are girls, beside, 

Thought I, and like a wedding by one rule. 

You seldom catch these birds except with chaff. 

They feel it almost an immoral thing 

To go out and be married in broad day, 

Unless some winning, special flattery should 

Excuse them to themselves for't. ..." No one parts 

Her hair with such a silver Ime as you. 

One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown ! " 

Or else ..." You bite your lip in such a way 

It spoils me for the smiling of the rest ; " 

And so on. Then a worthless gaud or two 

To keep for love, — a ribbon for the neck. 

Or some glass pin, — they have their weight with girls. 

And Romney sought her many days and weeks. 

He sifted all the refuse of the town. 

Explored the trains, inquired among the ships. 

And felt the country through from end to end ; 

No Marian ! Though I hinted what I knew, — 

A friend of his had reasons of her own 

For throwing back the match, — he would not hear : 

The lady had been ailing ever since. 

The shock had harmed her. Something in his tone 

Repressed me ; something in me shamed my doubt 

To a sigh repressed too. He went on to say, 

That, putting questions where his Marian lodged, 

He found she had received for visitors — 

Besides himself and Lady Waldemar, 

And, that once, me — a dubious woman dressed 

Beyond us both : the rings upon her hands 

Had dazed the children when she threw them pence ; 

" She wore her bonnet as the queen might hers, 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 53 

To show the crown," they said, — "a scarlet crown 
Of roses that had never been in bud." 

When Romney told me that, for now and then 
He came to tell me how the search advanced. 
His voice dropped. I bent forward for the rest. 
The woman had been with her, it appeared. 
At first from week to week, then day by day, 
And last, 'twas sure . . . 

I looked upon the ground 
To escape the anguish of his eyes, and asked, 
As low as when you speak to mourners new 
Of those they cannot bear yet to call dead, 
" If Marian had as much as named to hira 
A certain Rose, an early friend of hers, 
A ruined creature." 

" Never ! " Starting up, 
He strode from side to side about the room, 
Most like some prisoned lion sprung awake, 
Who has felt the desert sting him through his dreams. 
" What was I to her, that she should tell me aught ? 
A friend ! was / a friend ? I see all clear. 
Such devils would pull angels out of heaven. 
Provided they could reach them : 'tis their pride, 
And that's the odds 'twixt soul and body plague ! 
The veriest slave who drops in Cairo's street 
Cries, " Stand off from me ! " to the passengers ; 
While these blotched souls are eager to infect, 
And blow their bad breath in a sister's face, 
As if they got some ease by it." 

I broke through. 
" Some natures catch no plagues. I've read of babes 
Found whole, and sleeping by the spotted breast 



154 AURORA LEIGH, 

Of one a full day dead, I hold it true, 
As I'm a woman and know womanhood, 
That Marian Erie, however lured from place, 
Deceived in way, keeps pure in aim and heart 
As snow that's drifted from the garden-bank 
To the open road." 

'Twas hard to hear him laugh. 
" The figure's happy. Well, a dozen carts 
And trampers will secure you presently 
A fine white snow-drift. Leave it there, your snow ! 
'Twill pass for soot ere sunset. Pure in aim t 
She's pure in aim, I grant you, like myself. 
Who thought to take the world upon my back 
To carry it o'er a chasm of social ill, 
And end by letting slip, through impotence, 
A single soul, a child's weight in a soul, 
Straight down the pit of hell ! Yes, I and she 
Have reason to be proud of our pure aims." 
Then softly, as the last repenting drops 
Of a thunder-shower, he added, " The poor child, 
Poor Marian ! 'twas a luckless day for her, 
When first she chanced on my philanthropy." 
He drew a chair beside me, and sate down ; 
And I instinctively — as women use 
Before a sweet friend's grief, when in his ear 
They hum the tune of comfort, though themselves 
Most ignorant of the special words of such. 
And quiet so and fortify his brain. 
And give it time and strength for feeling out 
To reach the availing sense beyond that sound — 
Went murmuring to him what, if written here. 
Would seem not much, \y^\. fetched him better help 
Than peradventure if it had been more. 



AURORA LEIGH. 155 



I've known the pregnant thinkers of our thue, 

And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips, 

When some chromatic sequence of fine thought 

In learned modulation phrased itself 

To an unconjectured harmony of truth ; 

And yet I've been more moved, more raised, I say, 

By a simple word ... a broken, easy thing 

A three-years infant might at need repeat, 

A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm, 

Which meant less than " I love you," than by all 

The full-voiced rhetoric of those master-mouths. 

"Ah, dear Aurora," he began at last. 

His pale lips fumbling for a sort of smile, 

" Your printer's devils have not spoilt your heart : 

That's well. And who knows, but long years ago 

When you and I talked, you were somewhat right 

In being so peevish with me ? You, at least. 

Have ruined no one through your dreams. Instead 

You've helped the facile youth to live youth's day 

With innocent distraction, still, perhaps 

Suggestive of things better than your rhymes. 

The little shepherd-maiden, eight years old, 

I've seen upon the mountains of Vaucluse, 

Asleep i' the sun, her head upon her knees, 

The flocks all scattered, is more laudable 

Than any sheep-dog trained imperfectly, 

Who bites the kids through too much zeal." 

" I look 
As if I had slept, then ? " 

He was touched at once 
By something in my face. Indeed, 'twas sure 
That he and I, despite a year or two 
Of younger life on my side, and on his 



156 AURORA LEIGH > 

The heaping of the years' work on the days, 
The three-hour speeches from the member's seat, 
The hot committees in and out of doors, 
The pamphlets, "Arguments," "Collective Views," 
Tossed out as straw before sick houses, just 
To show one's sick, and so be trod to dirt. 
And no more use, — through this world's underground 
The burrowing, groping effort, whence the arm 
And heart come torn, — 'twas sure that he and I 
' Were, after all, unequally fatigued ; 
That he, in his developed manhood, stood 
A little sunburnt by the glare of life. 
While I ... it seemed no. sun had shone on me, 
'So many seasons I had missed my springs. 
My cheeks had pined and perished from their orbs, 
And all the youth-blood in them had grown white 
As dew on autumn cyclamens : alone 
My eyes and forehead answered for my face. 

He said, " Aurora, you are changed — are ill ! " 

" Not so, my cousin, — only not asleep," 

1 answered, smiling gently. " Let it be. 

You scarcely found the poet of Vaucluse 

As drowsy as the shepherds. What is art 

But life upon the larger scale, the higher, 

When, graduating up in a spiral line 

Of still expanding and ascending gyres. 

It pushes toward the intense significance 

Of all things, hungry for the Infinite ? 

Art's life ; and where we live, we suffer and toil." 

He seemed to sift me with his painful eyes. 

" You take it gravely, cousin : you refuse 

Your dreamland's right of common, and green rest. 



AURORA LEIGH. 157 

You break the mythic turf where danced the nymphs, 

With crooked ploughs of actual life, let in 

The axes to the legendary woods. 

To pay the poll-tax. You are fallen indeed 

On evil days, you poets, if yourselves 

Can praise that art of yours no otherwise ; 

And if you cannot . . . better take a trade 

And be of use : 'twere cheaper for your youth." 

" Of use ! " I softly echoed, " there's the point 
We sweep about forever in argument. 
Like swallows which the exasperate, dying year 
Sets spinning in black circles, round and round. 
Preparing for far flights o'er unknown seas. 
And we — where tend we ? " 

" Where ? " he said, and sighed. 
" The whole creation, from the hour we are born. 
Perplexes us with questions. Not a stone 
But cries behind us every weary step, 
' Where, where ? ' I leave stones to reply to stones. 
Enough for me and for my fleshly heart 
To hearken the invocations of my kind. 
When men catch hold upon my shuddering nerves, 
And shriek, ' What help ? what hope ? what bread i' the house ? 
What fire i' the frost ? ' There must be some response. 
Though mine fail utterly. This social Sphinx, 
Who sits between the sepulchres and stews. 
Makes mock and mow against the crystal heavens. 
And bullies God, — exacts a word at least 
From each man standing on the side of God 
However paying a sphinx-price for it. 
We pay it also, if we hold our peace. 
In pangs and pity. Let me speak and die. 
Alas ! you'll say I speak and kill instead." 



158 AURORA LEIGH. 

I pressed in there. " The best men doing their best, 

Know peradventure least of what they do ; 

Men usefuUest i' the world are simply used ; 

The nail that holds the wood must pierce it first ; 

And he alone who wields the hammer sees 

The work advanced by the earliest blow. Take heart, 

" Ah, if I could have taken yours ! " he said — 

** But that's past now." Then rising — " I will take 

At least your kindness and encouragement. 

I thank you. Dear, be happy. Sing your songs, • 

If that's your way ; but sometimes slumber, too. 

Nor tire too much with following, out of breath. 

The rhymes upon your mountains of Delight. 

Reflect, if art be in truth the higher life 

You need the lower life to stand upon 

In order to reach up unto that higher; 

And none can stand a-tiptoe in the place 

He cannot stand in with two stable feet. 

Remember then ! for art's sake hold your life." 

We parted so. I held him in respect. 

I comprehended what he was in heart 

And sacrificial greatness. Ay, but he 

Supposed me a thing too small to deign to know. 

He blew me, plainly, from the crucible 

As some intruding, interrupting fly. 

Not worth the pains of his analysis 

Absorbed on nobler subjects. Hurt a fly ! 

He would not for the world : he's pitiful 

To flies even. " Sing," says he, " and tease me still. 

If that's your way, poor insect." That's your way ! 



AURORA LEIGH. 159 



FIFTH BOOK. 

Aurora Leigh, be humble. Shall I hope 

To speak my poems in mysterious tune 

With man and nature ? with the lava lymph 

That trickles from successive galaxies 

Still drop by drop adown the finger of God 

In still new worlds ? with summer-days in this 

That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful ? 

With spring's delicious trouble in the ground, 

Tormented by the quickened blood of roots. 

And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves 

In token of the harvest-time of flowers ? 

With winters and with autumns, and beyond 

With the human heart's large seasons, when it hopes 

And fears, joys, grieves, and loves ? with all that strain 

Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh 

In a sacrament of souls ? with mothers' breasts. 

Which, round the new-made creatures hanging there. 

Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres ? 

With multitudinous life, and, finally. 

With the great escapings of ecstatic souls. 

Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame. 

Their radiant faces upward, burn away 

This dark of the body, issuing on a world 

Beyond our mortal ? Can I speak my verse 

So plainly in tune to these things and the rest 

That men shall feel it catch them on the quick, 

As having the same warrant over them 

To hold and move them, if they will or no. 

Alike imperious as the primal rhythm 

Of that theurgic nature ? I must fail 

Who fail at the beginning to hold and move 



l6o AURORA LEIGH. 

One man, and he my cousin, and he my friend, 

And he born tender, made intelligent, 

Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides 

Of difficult questions, yet obtuse to me^ 

Of me, incurious ! likes me very well, 

And wishes me a paradise of good, — 

Good looks, good means, and good digestion, — ay, 

But otherwise evades me, puts me off 

With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness, — 

Too light a book for a grave man's reading ! Go, 

Aurora Leigh : be humble. 

There it is, 
We women are too apt to look to one. 
Which proves a certain impotence in art. 
We strain our natures at doing something great, 
Far less because it's something great to do 
Than haply that we, so, commend ourselves 
As being not small, and more appreciable 
To some one friend. We must have mediators 
Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge ; 
Some sweet saint's blood must quicken in our palms, 
Or all the life in heaven seems slow and cold ; 
Good only being perceived as the end of good. 
And God alone pleased, — that's too poor, we think, 
And not enough for us by any means. 
Ay, Romney, I remember, told me once 
We miss the abstract when we comprehend ; 
We miss it most when we aspire, — and fail. 

Yet, so, I will not. This vile woman's way 
Of trailing garments shall not trip me up : 
I'll have no traffic with the personal thought 
In art's pure temple. Must I work in vain, 
Without the approbation of a man ? 



AURORA LEIGH. l6l 

It cannot be ; it shall not. Fame itself, 
That approbation of the general race, 
Presents a poor end (though the arrow speed 
Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white), 
And the highest fame was never reached except 
By what was aimed above it. Art for art, 
And good for God himself, the essential Good ! 
We'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect, 
Although our woman-hands should shake and fail ; 
And if we fail . . . But must we ? — 

Shall I fail ? 
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 
"Let no one be called happy till his death." 
To which I add. Let no one till his death 
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work 
Until the day's out and the labor done ; 
Then bring your gauges. If the day's work's scant 
Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ; 
And, in that we've nobly striven at least, 
Deal with us nobly, women though we be, 
And honor us with truth, if not with praise. 

My ballads prospered ; but the ballad's race 

Is rapid for a poet who bears weights 

Of thought and golden image. He can stand 

Like Atlas, in the sonnet, and support 

His own heavens pregnant with dynastic stars ; 

But then he must stand still, nor take a step. 

In that descriptive poem called " The Hills," 
The prospects were too far and indistinct. 
'Tis true my critics said, " A fine view, that ! " 
The public scarcely cared to climb my book 
For even the finest, and the public's right : 



1 62 AURORA LEIGH. 

A tree's mere firewood, unless humanized ; 

Which well the Greeks knew when they stirred its bark 

With close-pressed bosoms of subsiding nymphs, 

And made the forest-rivers garrulous 

With babble of gods. For us, we are called to mark 

A still more intimate humanity 

In this inferior nature, or ourselves 

Must fall like dead leaves trodden underfoot 

By veritable artists. Earth (shut up 

By Adam, like a fakir in a box 

Left too long buried) remained stiff and dry, 

A mere dumb corpse, till Christ the Lord came down, 

Unlocked the doors, forced open the blank eyes, 

And used his kingly chrism to straighten out 

The leathery tongue turned back into the throat ; 

Since when, she lives, remembers, palpitates 

In every limb, aspires in every breath. 

Embraces infinite relations. Now 

We want no half-gods, Panomphasan Joves, 

Fauns, Naiads, Tritons, Oreads, and the rest, 

To take possession of a senseless world 

To unnatural vampire-uses. See the earth 

The body of our body, the green earth, 

Indubitably human like this flesh 

And these articulated veins through which 

Our heart drives blood ! There's not a flower of spring 

That dies ere June, but vaunts itself allied 

By issue and symbol, by significance 

And correspondence, to that spirit-world. 

Outside the limits of our space and time, 

Whereto we are bound. Let poets give it voice 

With human meanings, else they miss the thought, 

And henceforth step down lower, stand confessed 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 63 

Instructed poorly for interpreters, 
Thrown out by an easy cowslip in the text. 

Even so my pastoral failed : it was a book 

Of surface-pictures, pretty, cold, and false 

With literal transcript, — the worse done, I think. 

For being not ill done : let me set my mark 

Against such doings, and do otherwise. 

This strikes me. — If the public whom we know 

Could catch me at such admissions, I should pass 

For being right modest. Yet how proud we are 

In daring to look down upon ourselves ! 

The critics say that epics have died out 

With Agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods : 

I'll not believe it. I could never deem, 

As Payne Knight did (the mythic mountaineer 

Who travelled higher than he was born to live, 

And showed sometimes the goitre in his throat 

Discoursing of an image seen through fog). 

That Homer's heroes measured twelve feet high. 

They were but men : his Helen's hair turned gray 

Like any plain Miss Smith's who wears a front ; 

And Hector's infant whimpered at a plume 

As yours last Friday at a turkey-cock. 

All actual heroes are essential men. 

And all men possible heroes ; every age, 

Heroic in proportions, double-faced. 

Looks backward and before, expects a morn 

And claims an epos. 

Ay ; but every age 
Appears to souls who live in't (ask Carlyle) 
Most unheroic. Ours, for instance, ours — 
The thinkers scout it, and the poets abound 
Who scorn to touch it with a finger-tip — 



Jf^4 AURORA LEIGH, 

A pewter age, mixed metal, silver-washed — 

An age of scum, spooned off the richer past, — 

An age of patches for old gaberdines. 

An age of mere transition, meaning naught 

Except that what succeeds must shame it quite 

If God please. That's wrong thinking, to my mind. 

And wrong thoughts make poor poems. 

Every age, 
Through being beheld too close, is ill discerned 
By those who have not lived past it. We'll suppose 
Mount Athos carved, as Alexander schemed. 
To some colossal statue of a man. 
The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear. 
Had guessed as little as the browsing goats 
Ot form or feature of humanity 
Up there, — in fact, had travelled five miles off 
Or ere the giant image broke on them. 
Full human profile, nose and chin distinct. 
Mouth muttering rhythms of silence up the sky, 
And fed at evening with the blood of suns ; 
Grand torso, — hand that flung perpetually 
The largesse of a silver river down 
To all the country pastures. 'Tis even thus 
With times we live in, — evermore too great 
To be apprehended near. 

But poets should 
Exert a double vision ; should have eyes 
To see near things as comprehensively 
As if afar they took their point of sight, 
And distant things as intimately deep 
As if they touched them. Let us strive for this. 
I do distrust the poet who discerns 
No character or glory in his times, 
And trundles back his soul five hundred years, 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 65 



Past moat and drawbridge, into a castle-court, 

To sing — oh, not of lizard or of toad 

Alive i' the ditch there, — 'twere excusable, 

But of some black chief, half knight, half sheep-lifter, 

Some beauteous dame, half chattel and half queen, 

As dead as must be, for the greater part. 

The poems made on their chivalric bones ; 

And that's no wonder : death inherits death. 

Nay, if there's room for poets in this world 

A little overgrown (I think there is). 

Their sole work is to represent the age, 

Their age, not Charlemagne's, — this live, throbbing age, 

That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires. 

And spends more passion, more heroic heat. 

Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing;-rooms, 

Than Roland with his knights at Roncesvalles. 

To flinch from modern varnish, coat, or flounce, 

Cry out for togas and the picturesque. 

Is fatal, — foolish, too. King Arthur's self 

Was commonplace to Lady Guinevere ; 

And Camelot to minstrels seemed as flat 

As Fleet Street to our poets. 

Never flinch, 
But still, unscrupulously epic, catch 
Upon the burning lava of a song 
The full-veined, heaving, double-breasted age, 
That, when the next shall come, the men of that 
May touch the impress with reverent hand, and say, 
" Behold, behold, the paps we all have sucked ! 
This bosom seems to beat still, or at least 
It sets ours beating : this is living art. 
Which thus presents and thus records true life. 



1 66 AURORA LEIGH. 

What form is best for poems ? Let ma think 

Of forms less, and the external. Trust the spirit, 

As sovran nature does, to make the form ; 

For otherwise we only imprison spirit 

And not embody. Inward evermore 

To outward, — so in life, and so in art, 

Which still is life. 

Five acts to make a play. 
And why not fifteen ? why not ten ? or seven t 
What matter for the number of the leaves. 
Supposing the tree lives and grows ? exact 
The literal unities of time and place, 
When 'tis the essence of passion to ignore 
Both time and place .'' Absurd. Keep up the fire. 
And leave the generous tlames to shape themselves. 
'Tis true the stage requires obsequiousness 
To this or that convention ; " exit " here 
And "enter" there ; the points for clapping fixed, 
Like Jacob's white-peeled rods before the rams ; 
And all the close-curled imagery c^-pped 
In manner of their fleece at shearing-time. 
Forget to prick the galleries to the heart 
Precisely at the fourth act, culminate 
Our five pyramidal acts with one act more. 
We're lost so : Shakspeare's ghost could scarcely plead 
Against our just damnation. Stand aside ; 
We'll muse, for comfort, that last century. 
On this same tragic stage on which we have failed, 
A wigless Hamlet would have failed the same 

And whosoever writes good poetry 

Looks just to art. He does not write for you 

Or me, for London or for Edinburgh ; 

He will not suffer the best critic known 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 6/ 



To step into his sunshine of free thought 
And self-absorbed conception, and exact 
An inch-long swerving of the holy lines. 
If virtue done for popularity 
Defiles like vice, can art, for praise or hire. 
Still keep its splendor, and remain pure art ? 
Eschew such serfdom. What the poet writes. 
He writes. Mankind accepts it if it suits. 
And that's success : if not, the poem's passed 
From hand to hand, and yet from hand to hand, 
Until the unborn snatch it, crying out 
In pity on their fathers' being so dull ; 
And that's success too. 

I will write no plays. 
Because the drama, less sublime in this, 
Makes lower appeals ; submits more menially ; 
Adopts the standard of the public taste 
To chalk its height on ; wears a dog-chain round 
Its regal neck, and learns to carry and fetch 
The fashions of the day to please the day ; 
Fawns close on pit and boxes, who clap hands, 
Commending chiefly its docility 
And humor in stage-tricks ; or else, indeed. 
Gets hissed at, howled at, stamped at like a dog. 
Or worse, v.e'll say. For dogs, unjustly kicked. 
Yell, bite at need ; but if your dramatist 
(Being wronged by some five hundred nobodies. 
Because their grosser brains most naturally 
Misjudge the fineness of his subtle wit) 
Shows teeth an almond's breadth, protests the length 
Of a modest phrase, " My gentle countrymen. 
There's something in it haply of your fault," 
Why then, besides five hundred nobodies. 
He'll have five thousand and five thousand more 



1 68 AURORA LEIGH. 



Against him, — the whole pubUc, all the hoofs 
Of King Saul's father's asses, in full drove, 
And obviously deserve it. He appealed 
To these, and why say more if they condemn, 
Than if they praise him ? Weep, my ^schylus, 
But low and far, upon Sicilian shores ! 
For since 'twas Athens (so I read the myth) 
Who gave commission to that fatal weight 
The tortoise, cold and hard, to drop on thee 
And crush thee, better cover thy bald head. 
She'll hear the softest hum of Hyblan bee 
Before thy loudest protestation 

Then 

The risk's still worse upon the modern stage : 
I could not, for so litde, accept success ; 
Nor would I risk so much, in ease and calm, 
For manifester gains : let those who prize 
Pursue them : I stand off. And yet forbid 
That any irreverent fancy or conceit 
Should litter in the drama's throne-room where 
The rulers of our art, in whose full veins 
Dynastic glories mingle, sit in strength 
And do their kingly work, conceive, command, 
And from the imagination's crucial heat 
Catch up their men and women all aflame 
For action, all alive, and forced to prove 
Their life by living out heart, brain, and nerve. 
Until mankind makes witness, " These be men 
As we are," and vouchsafes the greeting due 
To Imogen and Juliet, — sweetest kin 
On art's side. 

'Tis that, honoring to its worth 
The drama, I would fear to keep it down 
To the level of the footlights. Dies no more 



AURORA LEIGH. 169 

The sacrificial goat, for Bacchus slain, 

His filmed eyes fluttered by the whirling white 

Of choral vestures, troubled in his blood. 

While tragic voices that clanged keen as swords. 

Leapt high together with the altar-flame, 

And made the blue air wink. The waxen mask. 

Which set the grand, still front of Themis' son 

Upon the puckered visage of a player ; 

The buskin, which he rose upon and moved. 

As some tall ship, first conscious of the wind, 

Sweeps slowly past the piers ; the mouthpiece, where 

The mere man's voice, with all its breaths and breaks. 

Went sheathed in brass, and clashed on even heights 

Its phrased thunders, — these things are no more, 

Which once were. And concluding, which is clear. 

The growing drama has outgrown such toys 

Of simulated stature, face, and speech. 

It also peradventure may outgrow 

The simulation of the painted scene. 

Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume, 

And take for a worthier stage the soul itself. 

Its shifting fancies and celestial lights. 

With all its grand orchestral silences 

To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds. 

Alas ! I still see something to be done. 

And what I do falls short of what I see. 

Though I waste myself on doing. Long green days. 

Worn bare of grass and sunshine ; long calm nights. 

From W'hich the silken sleeps were fretted out, — 

Be witness for me, with no amateur's 

Irreverent haste and busy idleness 

I set myself to art ! What then ? what's done ? 

What's done, at last ? 



70 AURORA LEIGH. 



Behold, at last, a book. 
If life-blood's necessary, which it is, — 
(By that blue vein a-throb on Mahomet's brow, 
Each prophet-poet's book must show man's blood !) 
If hfe-blood's fertilizing, I wrung mine 
On every leaf of this, unless the drops 
Slid heavily on one side, and left it dry. 
That chances often. Many a fervid man 
Writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones 
From which the lichen's scraped ; and if St. Preux 
Had written his own letters, as he might. 
We had never wept to think of the little mole 
'Neath Julie's drooping eyelid. Passion is 
But something suffered, after all. 

While art 
Sets action on the top of suffering. 
The artist's part is both to be and do. 
Transfixing with a special central power 
The flat experience of the common man. 
And turning outward, with a sudden wrench, 
Half agony, half ecstasy, the thing 
He feels the inmost, — never felt the less 
Because he sings it. Does a torch less burn 
For burning next reflectors of blue steel. 
That he should be the colder for his place 
'Twixt two incessant fires, — his personal life's, 
And that intense refraction which burns back 
Perpetually against him from the round 
Of crystal conscience he was born into, 
If artist-born .? Oh, sorrowful, great gift 
Conferred on poets, of a twofold life, 
When one life has been found enough for pain ! 
We, staggering 'neath our burden as mere men. 
Being called to stand up straight as demigods, 



AURORA LEIGH. I /I 

Support the intolerable strain and stress 
Of the universal, and send clearly up, 
With voices broken by the human sob, 
Our poems to find rhymes among the stars ! 
But soft, — a " poet " is a v^^ord soon said, 
A book's a thing soon written. Nay, indeed, 
The more the poet shall be questionable. 
The more unquestionably comes his book. 
And this of mine — well, granting to myself 
Some passion in it, furrowing up the flats. 
Mere passion will not prove a volume worth 
Its gall and rags even. Bubbles round a keel 
Mean naught, excepting that the vessel moves. 
There's more than passion goes to make a man, 
Or book, which is a man too. 

I am sad. 
I wonder if Pygmalion had these doubts. 
And, feeling the hard marble first relent. 
Grow supple to the straining of his arms. 
And tingle through its cold to his burning lip. 
Supposed his senses mocked, supposed the toil 
Of stretching past the known and seen to reach 
The archetypal beauty out of sight. 
Had made his heart beat fast enough .or two. 
And with his own life dazed and blinded him ! 
Not so. Pygmalion loved ; and whoso loves 
Believes the impossible. 

But I am sad : 
I cannot thoroughly love a work of mine. 
Since none seems worthy of my thought and hope 
More highly mated. He has shot them down 
My Phoebus Apollo, soul within my soul. 
Who judges by the attempted what's attained 
And with the silver arrow from his height 



172 AURORA LEIGH. 

Has struck clown all my works before my face, 
While I said nothing. Is there aught to say ? 
I called the artist but a greatened man. 
He may be childless also, like a man. 

I labored on alone. The wind and dust 

And sun of the world beat blistering in my face ; 

And hope, now- for me, now against me, dragged 

My spirits onward, as some fallen balloon. 

Which, whether caught by blossoming tree or bare. 

Is torn alike. I sometimes touched my aim. 

Or seemed, and generous souls cried out, " Be strong. 

Take courage ; now you're on our level — now ! 

The next step saves you." I was flushed with praise'; 

But, pausing just a moment to draw breath, 

I could not choose but murmur to myself, 

" Is this all ? all that's done ? and all that's gained ? 

If this, then, be success, 'tis dismaller 

Than any failure." 

O my God, my God, 
O supreme Artist, who as sole return 
For all the cosmic wonder of thy work, 
Demandest of us just a word ... a name. 
" My Father ! " thou hast knowledge, only thou, 
How dreary 'tis for women to sit still 
On winter nights, by solitary fires. 
And hear the nations praising them far off. 
Too far ! ay, praising our quick sense of love, 
Our very heart of passionate womanhood, 
Which could not beat so in the verse, without 
Being present also in the unkissed lips. 
And eyes undried, because there's none to ask 
The reason they grew moist. 



AURORA LEIGH, 173 



To sit alone 
And think for comfort, how that very night 
Affianced lovers, leaning face to face. 
With sweet half-listenings for each other's breath, 
Are reading haply from a page of ours, 
To pause with a thrill (as if their cheeks had touched) 
When such a stanza, level to their mood, 
Seems floating their own thought out — "So I feel 
For thee," — " And I, for thee : this poet knows 
What everlasting love is ! " — how that night 
Some father, issuing from the misty roads 
Upon the luminous round of lamp and hearth, 
And happy children, having caught up first 
The youngest there, until it shrink and shriek 
To feel the cold chin prick its dimples through 
With winter from the hills, may throw i' the lap 
Of the eldest (who has learnt to drop her lids 
To hide some sweetness newer than last year's) 
Our book, and cry . . . " Ah, you, you care for rhymes : 
So here be rhymes to pore on under trees. 
When April comes to let you ! I've been told 
They are not idle, as so many are. 
But set hearts beating pure, as well as fast. 
'Tis yours, the book : I'll write your name in 
That so you may not lose, however lost 
In poet's lore and charming revery. 
The thought of how your father thought of yoii 
In riding from the town." 

To have our books 
Appraised by love, associated with love, 
While we sit loveless ! is it hard, you think ? 
At least 'tis mournful. Fame, indeed, 'twas said, 
Means simply love. It was a man said that. 
And then there's love and love : the love of all 



174 AURORA LEIGH, 

(To risk in turn a woman's paradox) 
Is but a small thing to the love of one. 
You bid a hungry child be satisfied 
With a heritage of many cornfields ; nay, 
He says he's hungry ; he would rather have 
That little barley-cake you keep from him 
While reckoning up his harvests. So with us ; 
(Here, Romney, too, we fail to generalize !) 
We're hungry. 

Hungry ! But it's pitiful 
To wail like unweaned babes, and suck our thumbs. 
Because we're hungry. Who in all this world 
(Wherein we are haply set to pray and fast, 
And learn what good is by its opposite) 
Has never hungered ? Woe to him who has found 
The meal enough ! If Ugolino's full, 
His teeth have crushed some foul, unnatural thing • 
For here satiety proves penury 
More utterly irremediable. And since 
We needs must hunger, better, for man's love 
Than God's truth ! better, for companions sweet 
Than great convictions ! Let us bear our weights. 
Preferring dreary hearths to desert souls. 
Well, well ! they say we're envious, we who rhyme ; 
But I — because I am a woman, perhaps. 
And so rhyme ill — am ill at envying. 
I never envied Graham his breadth of style. 
Which gives you with a random smutch or two, 
(Near-sighted critics analyze to smutch) 
Such delicate perspectives of full life ; 
Nor Belmore, for the unity of aim 
To which he cuts his cedarn poems, fine. 
As sketchers do their pencils ; nor Mark Gage, 
For that caressing color and trancing tone 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 75 



Whereby you're swept away, and melted in 

The sensual element, which, with a back wave, 

Restores you to the level of pure souls. 

And leaves you with Plotinus. None of these, 

For native gifts or popular applause, 

I've envied ; but for this, — that when by chance 

Says some one, " There goes Belmore, a great man 1 

He leaves clean work behind him, and requires 

No sweeper-up of the chips," ... a girl I know. 

Who answers nothing, save with her brown eyes. 

Smiles unaware, as if a guardian saint 

Smiled in her ; for this, too, that Gage comes home 

And lays his last book's prodigal review 

Upon his mother's knee, where, years ago. 

He laid his childish spelling-book, and learned 

To chirp, and peck the letters from her mouth. 

As young birds must. " Well done," she murmured then . 

She will not say it now more wonderingly. 

And yet the last " Well done " will touch him more, 

As catching up to-day and yesterday 

In a perfect chord of love. And so, Mark Gage, 

I envy you your mother, — and you, Graham, 

Because you have a wife who loves you so, 

She half forgets, at moments, to be proud 

Of being Graham's wife, until a friend observes, 

" The boy here has his father's massive brow. 

Done small in wax ... if we push back the curls.'' 

Who loves me ? Dearest father, mother sweet. — 
I speak the names out sometimes by myself, 
And make the silence shiver. They sound strange, 
As Hindostanee to an Ind-born man 
Accustomed many years to English speech ; 
Or lovely poet-words grown obsolete, 



1/6 AURORA LEIGH. 

Which will not leave off singing. Up in heaven 
I have my father, with my mother's face 
B-side him in a blotch of heavenly light ; 
No more for earth's familiar, household use, 
No more. The best verse written by this hand 
Can never reach them where they sit, to seem 
Well done to t/mtt. Death quite unfellows us, 
Sets dreadful odds betwixt the live and dead, 
And makes us part, as those at Babel did. 
Through sudden ignorance of a common tongue. 
A living Caesar would not dare to play 
At bowls with such as my dead father is. 



And yet this may be less so than appears. 

This change and separation. Sparrows five 

For just two farthings, and God cares for each. 

If God is not too great for little cares, 

Is any creature, because gone to God ? 

I've seen some men, veracious, nowise mad. 

Who have thought or dreamed, declared and testified. 

They heard the dead a-ticking like a clock 

Which strikes the hours of the eternities, 

Bsside them, with their natural ears, and known 

That human spirits feel the human way. 

And hate the unreasoning awe which waves them off 

From possible communion. It may be. 

At least, earth separates as well as heaven. 

For instance, I have not seen Romney Leigh 

Full eighteen months . . . add six, you get two years. 

They say he's very busy with good works, 

Has parted Leigh Hall into almshouses. 

He made one day an almshouse of his heart, 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 7/ 



Which ever since is loose upon the latch 
For those who pull the string. — I never did. 

It always makes me sad to go abroad, 

And now I'm sadder that I went to-night 

Among the lights and talkers at Lord Howe's. 

His wife is gracious, with her glossy braids. 

And even voice, and gorgeous eye-balls, calm 

As her other jewels. If she's somewhat cold. 

Who wonders, when her blood has stood so long 

In the ducal reservoir she calls her line 

By no means arrogantly ? She's not proud ; 

Not prouder than the swan is of the lake 

He has always swum in : 'tis her element. 

And so she takes it with a natural grace. 

Ignoring tadpoles. She just knows, perhaps, 

There are who travel without outriders, 

Which isn't her fault. Ah, to watch her face, 

W^hen good Lord Howe expounds his theories 

Of social justice and equality ! 

'Tis curious what a tender, tolerant bend 

Her neck takes ; for she loves him, likes his talk, 

" Such clever talk — that dear odd Algernon ! " 

She listens on, exactly as if he talked 

Some Scandinavian myth of Lemures, 

Too pretty to dispute, and too absurd. 

She's gracious to me as her husband's friend, 
And would be gracious were I not a Leigh, 
Being used to smile just so, without her eyes, 
On Joseph Strangvvays, the Leeds mesmerist, 
And Delia Dobbs, the lecturer from " the States " 
Upon the " Woman's question." Then, for him — 
I like him : he's my friend. And all the rooms 



i;8 AURORA LEIGH. 

Were full of crinkling silks that swept about 

The fine dust of most subtle courtesies. 

What then ? Why, then we come home to be sad. 

How lovely one I love not looked to-night ! 

She's very pretty, Lady Waldemar. 

Her maid must use both hands to twist that coil 

Of tresses, then be careful lest the rich 

Bronze rounds should slip : she missed, though, a gray haiij 

A single one, — I saw it ; otherwise 

The woman looked immortal. How they told, 

Those alabaster shoulders and bare breasts, 

On which the pearls, drowned out of sight in milk, 

Were lost, excepting for the ruby clasp. 

They split the amaranth velvet bodice down 

To the waist, or nearly, with the audacious press 

Of full-breathed beauty. If the heart within 

Were half as white ! — but, if it were, perhaps 

The breast were closer covered, and the sight 

Less aspectable by half, too. 

I heard 
The young man with the German student's look — 
A sharp face, like a knife in a cleft stick, 
Which shot up straight against the parting line 
So equally dividing the long hair — 
Say softly tc his neighbor (thirty-five 
And mediaeval), " Look that way. Sir Blaise. 
She's Lady Waldemar, — to the left, — in red, — 
Whom Romney Leigh, our ablest man just now, 
Is soon about to marry." 

Then replied 
Sir Blaise Delorme, with quiet, priest-like voice, 
Too used to syllable damnations round 
To make a natural emphasis worth while, 
" Is Leigh your ablest man ? — the same, I think, 



AURORA LEIGH. 1/9 

Once jilted by a recreant pretty maid 

Adopted from the people ? Now, in change, 

He seems to have plucked a flower from the other side 

Of the social hedge." 

" A flower, a flower ! " exclaimed 
My German student, his own eyes full blown 
Bent on her. He was twenty, certainly. 

Sir Blaise resumed with gentle arrogance. 

As if he had dropped his alms into a hat 

And gained the right to counsel, " My young friend, 

I doubt your ablest man's ability 

To get the least good or help meet for him, 

For Pagan phalanstery or Christian home, 

From such a flowery creature." 

" Beautiful ! " 
My student murmured, rapt. " Mark how she stirs ! 
Just waves her head, as if a flower indeed. 
Touched far off by the vain breath of our talk." 

At which that bilious Grimwald (he who writes 

For the Renovator), who had seemed absorbed 

Upon the table-book of autographs, 

(I dare say mentally he crunched the bones 

Of all those writers, wishing them alive 

To feel his tooth in earnest), turned short round 

With low carnivorous laugh, — " A flower, of course! 

She neither sews nor spins, and takes no thought 

Of her garments . . . falling off." 

The student flinched : 
Sir Blaise the same ; then both, drawing back their chairs 
As if they spied black-beetles on the floor. 
Pursued their talk, without a word being thrown 
To the critic. 



l80 AURORA LEIGH. 



Good Sir Blaise's brow is high, 
And noticeably narrow : a strong wind, 
You fancy, might unroof him suddenly. 
And blow that great top attic off his head 
So piled with feudal relics. You admire 
His nose in profile, though you miss his chin , 
But, though you miss his chin, you seldom miss 
His ebon cross, worn innermostly (carved 
For penance by a saintly Styrian monk 
Whose flesh was too much with him), slipping through 
Some unaware unbuttoned casualty 
Of the under waistcoat. With an absent air 
Sir Blaise sate fingering it, and speaking low. 
While I upon the sofa heard it all. 

" My dear young friend, if w-e could bear our eyes, 

Like blessedest St. Lucy, on a plate. 

They would not trick us into choosing wives, 

As doublets, by the color. Otherwise 

Our fathers chose ; and therefore, when they had hung 

Their household keys about a lady's waist, 

The sense of duty gave her dignity : 

She kept her bosom holy to her babes, 

And, if a moralist reproved her dress, 

'Twas, ' Too much starch ! ' and not, ' Too little lawn ! ' " 

" Now, pshaw ! " returned the other in a heat, 

A little fretted by being called " Young friend," 

Or so I took it, — " for St. Lucy's sake, 

If she's the saint to swear by, let us leave 

Our fathers, — plagued enough about our sons ! " 

(He stroked his beardless chin) " yes, plagued, sir, plagued 

The future generations lie on us 

As heavy as the nightmare of a seer : 



AURORA LEIGH. l8r 

Our meat and drink grow painful prophecy. 

I ask you, have we leisure, if we liked, 

To hollow out our weary hands to keep 

Your intermittent rushlight of the past 

From draughts in lobbies ? Prejudice of sex 

And marriage-law . . . the socket drops them through 

While we two speak, however may protest 

Some over-delicate nostrils, like your own, 

'Gamst odors thence arising." 

" You are young," 
Sir Blaise objected. 

" If I am," he said. 
With fire, " though somewhat less so than I seem, 
The young run on before, and see the thing 
That's coming. ' Reverence for the young ! ' I cry. 
In that new church for which the world's near ripe," 
You'll have the younger in the elder's chair. 
Presiding with his ivory front of hope 
O'er foreheads clawed by cruel carrion birds 
Of life's experience." 

" Pray your blessing, sir," 
Sir Blaise replied good-humoredly. " I plucked 
A silver hair this morning from my beard. 
Which left me your inferior. Would I were 
Eighteen, and worthy to admonish you ! 
If young men of your order run before 
To see such sights as sexual prejudice 
And marriage-law dissolved, — in plainer words, 
A general concubinage expressed 
In a universal pruriency, — the thing 
Is scarce worth running fast for, and you'd gain 
By loitering with your elders." 

"Ah!" he said, 
" Who, getting to the top of Pisgah-hill, 



l82 AURORA LEIGH. 

Can talk with one at bottom of the view, 
To make it comprehensible ? Why, Leigh 
Himself, although our ablest man, I said, 
Is scarce advanced to see as far as this ; 
Which some are. He takes up imperfectly 
The social question, — by one handle, — leaves 
The rest to trail. A Christian socialist 
Is Romney Leigh, you understand." 

" Not I. 
I disbelieve in Christian-Pagans, much 
As you in women-fishes. If we mix 
Two colors, we lose both, and make a third. 
Distinct from either. Mark you ! to mistake 
A color is the sign of a sick brain. 
And mine, I thank the saints, is clear and cool : 
A neutral tint is here impossible. 
The church — and by the church, I mean, of course, 
The catholic, apostolic, mother-church — 
Draws lines as plain and straight as her own wall, 
Inside of which are Christians, obviously. 
And outside . . . dogs." 

" We thank you. Well I know 
The ancient mother-church would fain still bite, 
For all her toothless gums, as Leigh himself 
Would fain be a Christian still, for all his wit. 
Pass that : you two may settle it for me. 
You're slow in England. In a month I learnt 
At Gottingen enough philosophy 
To stock your English schools for fifty years ; 
Pass that too. Here alone, I stop you short, 
— Supposing a true man like Leigh could stand 
Unequal in the stature of his life 
To the height of his opinions. Choose a wife 
Because of a smooth skin ? Not he, not he ! 



AURORA LEIGH. 183 

He'd rail at Venus' self for creaking shoes, 

Unless she walked his way of righteousness ; 

And if he takes a Venus Meretrix 

(No imputation on the lady there), 

Be sure that, by some sleight of Christian art 

He has metamorphosed and converted her 

To a Blessed Virgin." 

" Soft ! " Sir Blaise drew breath 
As if it hurt him, — " Soft ! no blasphemy, 
I pray you ! " 

" The first Christians did the thing : 
Why not the last ? " asked he of Gottingen, 
With just that shade of sneering on the lip, 
Compensates for the lagging of the beard, — 
" And so the case is. If that fairest fair 
Is talked of as the future wife of Leigh, 
She's talked of too, at least as certainly. 
As Leigh's disciple. You may find her name 
On all his missions and commissions, schools, 
Asylums, hospitals : he had her down. 
With other ladies whom her starry lead 
Persuaded from their spheres, to his countr}'-place 
In Shropshire, to the famed phalanstery 
At Leigh Hall, christianized from Fourier's own 
(In which he has planted out his sapling stocks 
Of knowledge into social nurseries). 
And there they say she has tarried half a week, 
And milked the cows, and churned, and pressed the curd. 
And said, ' My sister,' to the lowest drab 
Of all the assembled castaways : such girls ! 
Ay, sided with them at the washing-tub — 
Conceive, Sir Blaise, those naked, perfect arms, 
Round, glittering arms, plunged elbow-deep in suds 
Like wild swans hid in lilies all a-shake." 



1 84 AURORA LEIGH. 

Lord Howe came up. " What, talking poetry 

So near the image of the unfavoring Muse ? 

That's you, Miss Leigh : I've watched you half an hour. 

Precisely as I watched the statue called 

A Pallas in the Vatican. — You mind 

The face, Sir Blaise ? — intensely calm and sad, 

As wdsdom cut it off from fellowship. 

But that spoke louder. — Not a word from you / 

And these two gentlemen were bold, I marked. 

And unabashed by even your silence." 

" Ah," 
Said I, " my dear Lord Howe, you shall not speak 
To a printing woman who has lost her place 
(The sweet safe corner of the household fire 
Behind the heads of children) compliments. 
As if she were a woman. We who have dipt 
The curls before our eyes may see at least 
As plain as men do. Speak out, man to man, 
No compliments, beseech you." 

" Friend to friend, 
Let that be. We are sad to-night, I saw 
( — Good-night, Sir Blaise ! ah, Smith — he has slipped awav), 
I saw you cross the room, and staid. Miss Leigh, 
To keep a crowd of lion-hunters off. 
With faces toward your jungle. There were three : 
A spacious lady, five feet ten, and fat. 
Who has the devil in her (and there's room) 
For walking to and fro upon the earth. 
From Chippewa to China ; she requires 
Your autograph upon a tinted leaf 
'Twixt Queen Pomare's and Emperor Soulouque's. 
Pray, give it ! she has energies, though fat : 
For me I'd rather see a rick on fire 
Than such a woman angry. Then a youth 



AURORA LEIGH. 185 

Fresh from the backwoods, green as the underboughs, 

Asks modestly, Miss Leigh, to kiss your shoe. 

And adds he has an epic in twelve parts. 

Which, when you've read, you'll do it for his boot : 

All which I saved you, and absorb next week 

Both manuscript and man, — because a lord 

Is still more potent than a poetess 

With any extreme Republican. Ah, ah, 

You smile at last, then." 

" Thank you." 

" Leave the smile. 
I'll lose the thanks for't, ay, and throw you in 
My transatlantic girl, wath golden eyes. 
That draw you to her splendid whiteness as 
The pistil of a water-lily draws. 
Adust with gold. Those girls across the sea 
Are tyrannously pretty, and I swore 
(She seemed to me an innocent, frank girl) 
To bring her to you for a woman's kiss ; 
Not now, but on some other day or week : 
— We'll call it perjury ; I give her up." 

" No, bring her." 

"Now," said he, "you make it hard 
To touch such goodness with a grimy palm. 
I thought to tease you well, and fret you cross, 
And steel myself, when rightly vexed with you, 
For telling you a thing to tease you more." 

"Of Romney?" 

" No, no : nothing worse," he cried, 
"Of Romney Leigh than what is buzzed about — 
That he is taken in an eye-trap, too, 



1 86 AURORA LEIGH. 

Like many half as wise. The thing I mean 
Refers to you, not him." 

" Refers to me." 
He echoed. — " ' Me ! ' You sound it Uke a stone 
Dropped down a dry well very listlessly 
By one who never thinks about the toad 
Alive at the bottom. Presentl}^ perhaps, 
You'll sound your 'me ' more proudly — till I shrink." 

" Lord Howe's the toad, then, in this question ? " 

" Brief, 
We'll take it graver. Give me sofa-room. 
And quiet hearing. You know Eglinton, — 
John Eglinton of Eglinton in Kent ? " 

'' Is he the toad t He's rather like the snail. 
Known chiefly for the house upon his back : 
Divide the man and house, you kill the man : 
That's Eglinton of Eglinton, Lord Howe." 

He answered grave : " A reputable man, 

An excellent landlord of the olden stamp 

If somewhat slack in new philanthropies. 

Who keeps his birthdays with a tenant's dance, 

Is hard upon them when they miss the church, 

Or hold their children back from catechism, 

But not ungentle when the aged poor 

Pick sticks at hedgesides : nay, I've heard him say, 

* The old dame has a twinge because she stoops : 

That's punishment enough for felony.' " 

" O tender-hearted landlord ! may I take 

My long lease with him, when the time arrives 

For gathering winter-fagots ! " 



AURORA LEIGH. 187 

" He likes art ; 
Buys books and pictures ... of a certain kind ; 
Neglects no patent duty ; a good son "... 

" To a most obedient mother. Born to wear 
His father's shoes, he wears her husband's, too : 
Indeed I've heard it's touching. Dear Lord Howe, 
You shall not praise jfie so against your heart 
When I'm at worst for praise and fagots." 

"Be 
Less bitter with me ; for . . . in short," he said, 
" I have a letter, which he urged me so 
To bring you ... I could scarcely choose but yield ; 
Insisting that a new love, passing through 
The hand of an old friendship, caught from it 
Some reconciling odor." 

" Love, you say .? 
My lord, I cannot love : I only find 
The rhyme for love : and that's not love, my lord. 
Take back your letter." 

*' Pause. You'll read it first ? " 

" I will not read it : it is stereotyped, 

The same he wrote to, — anybody's name, 

Anne Blythe the actress, when she died so true 

A duchess fainted in a private box ; 

Pauline the dancer, after the great /^i" 

In which her little feet winked overhead 

Like other fireflies, and amazed the pit ; 

Or Baldinacci, when her F in alt 

Had touched the silver tops of heaven itself 

With such a pungent spirit-dart, the Queen 

Laid softly, each to each, her white-gloved palms, 

And sighed for joy ; or else (I thank your friend), 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Aurora Leigh, when some indifferent rhymes, 
Like those the boys sang round the holy ox 
On Memphis-highway, chance perhaps to set 
Our Apis-pubUc lowing. Oh, he wants. 
Instead of any worthy wife at home, 
A star upon his stage of Eglinton ? 
Advise him that he is not overshrewd 
In being so little modest : a dropped star 
Makes bitter waters, says a Book I've read , — 
And there's his unread letter." 

"My dear friend," 
Lord Howe began . . . 

In haste I tore the phrase. 
" You mean your friend of Eglinton, or me ? " 

" I mean you, you ! " he answered, with some fire. 

" A happy life means prudent compromise ; 

The tare runs through the farmer's garnered sheaves. 

And, though the gleaner's apron holds pure wheat. 

We count her poorer. Tare with wheat, we cry, 

And good with drawbacks. You, you love your art. 

And, certain of vocation, set your soul 

On utterance. Only, in this world we have made 

(They say God made it first, but if he did 

'Twas so long since, and, since, we have spoiled it so, 

He scarce would know it, if he looked this way. 

From hells we preach of, with the flames blov/n out), 

— In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world. 

Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost, — 

In this uneven, unfostering England here, 

Where ledger-strokes and sword-strokes count indeed, 

But soul-strokes merely tell upon the flesh 

They strike from, — it is hard to stand for art, 

Unless some golden tripod from the sea 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 89 

Be fished up, by Apollo's divine chance, 

To throne such feet as yours, my prophetess, 

At Delphi. Think, — the god comes down as fierce 

As twenty bloodhounds, shakes you, strangles you, 

Until the oracular shriek shall ooze in froth ! 

At best 'tis not all ease ; at worst too hard. 

A place to stand on is a 'vantage gained, 

And here's your tripod. To be plain, dear friend, 

You're poor, except in what you richly give ; 

You labor for your own bread painfully, 

Or ere you pour our wine. For art's sake, pause." 

I answered slow, — as some wayfaring man, 

Who feels himself at night too far from home. 

Makes steadfast face against the bitter wind, — 

" Is art so less a thing than virtue is. 

That artists first must cater for their ease. 

Or ever they make issue past themselves 

To generous use ? Alas ! and is it so, 

That we who would be somewhat clean must sweep 

Our ways, as well as walk them, and no friend 

Confirm us nobly, — ' Leave results to God, 

But you, be clean ! ' What ! ' prudent compromise 

Makes acceptable life,' you say instead, — 

You, you, Lord Howe ? — in things indifferent, well. 

For instance, compromise the wheaten bread 

For rye, the meat for lentils, silk for serge. 

And sleep on down, if needs, for sleep on straw ; 

But there end compromise. I will not bate 

One artist-dream on straw or down, my lord. 

Nor pinch my liberal soul, though I be poor, 

Nor cease to love high, though I live thus low." 

So speaking, with less anger in my voice 



190 AURORA LEIGH. 

Than sorrow, I rose quickly to depart ; 

While he, thrown back upon the noble shame 

Of such high stumbling natures, murmured words, — 

The right words after wrong ones. Ah, the man 

Is worthy, but so given to entertain 

Impossible plans of superhuman life, 

He sets his virtues on so raised a shelf. 

To keep them at the grand millennial height, 

He has to mount a stool to get at them, 

And meantime lives on quite the common way, 

With everybody's morals. 

As we passed. 
Lord Howe insisting that his friendly arm 
Should oar me across the sparkling, brawling stream 
Which swept from room to room, we fell at once 
On Lady Waldemar. " Miss Leigh," she said. 
And gave me such a smile, — so cold and bright. 
As if she tried it in a 'tiring glass 
And liked it, — " all to-night I've strained at you 
As babes at bawbles held up out of reach 
By spiteful nurses (' Never snatch,' they say), 
And there you sate, most perfectly shut in 
By good- Sir Blaise and clever Mister Smith, 
And then our dear Lord Howe ! At last indeed 
I almost snatched. I have a world to speak 
About your cousin's place in Shropshire, where 
I've been to see his work . . . our work, — you heard 
I went ? . . . and of a letter yesterday, 
In which if I should read a page or two 
You might feel interest, though you're locked of course 
In literary toil. — You'll like to hear 
Your last book lies at the phalanstery, 
As judged innocuous for the elder girls 
And younger women who still care for books. 




"We fell at once on Lady Waldemar." — Page 190. 



AURORA LEIGH. 



We all must read, you see, before we live, 
Till slowly the ineffable light comes up. 
And as it deepens drowns the written wordj] 
"So said your cousin, while we stood and felt 
A sunset from his favorite beech-tree seat. 
He might have been a poet if he would ; 
But then he saw the higher thing at once 
And climbed to it. I think he looks well now, 
Has quite got over that unfortunate . . . 
Ah, ah ... I know it moved you. Tender-heart ! 
You took a liking to the wretched girl. 
Perhaps you thought the marriage suitable. 
Who knows ? A poet hankers for romance, 
And so on. As for Romney Leigh, 'tis sure 
He never loved her, — never. By the way, 
You have not heard of her . . , ? Quite out of sight, 
And out of saving ? Lost in every sense ? " 

She might have gone on talking half an hour 

And I stood still, and cold, and pale, I think. 

As a garden-statue a child pelts with snow 

For pretty pastime. Every now and then 

I put in " yes " or " no," I scarce knew why : 

The blind man walks wherever the dog pulls. 

And so I answered. Till Lord Howe broke in : 

" What penance takes the wretch who interrupts 

The talk of charming women ? I at last 

Must brave it. Pardon, Lady Waldemar ! 

The lady on my arm is tired, unwell, 

And loyally I've promised she shall say 

No harder word this evening than . . . good-night : 

The rest her face speaks for her." — Then we went. 

And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloak, 



192 AURORA LEIGH. 

Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that ties 
My hair . . . now could I but unloose my soul ! 
We are sepulchred alive in this close world, 
And want more room. 

The charming woman there — 
This reckoning ujd and writing down her talk 
Affects me singularly. How she talked 
To pain me ! woman's spite. You wear steel mail ; 
A woman takes a housewife from her breast, 
And plucks the delicatest needle out 
As 'twere a rose, and pricks you carefully 
'Neath nails, 'neath eyelids, in your nostrils, say : 
A beast would roar so tortured : but a man, 
A human creature, must not, shall not, flinch. 
No, not for shame. 

What vexes, after all. 
Is just that such as she, with such as I, 
Knows how to vex. Sweet Heaven ! she takes me up 
As if she had fingered me, and dog-eared me, 
And spelled me by the fireside half a life. 
She knows my turns, my feeble points. What then ? 
The knowledge of a thing implies the thing : 
Of course, she found that in me, she saw that, 
Her pencil underscored this for a fault, 
And I, still ignorant. Shut the book up ^ close ! 
And crush that beetle in the leaves. 

O heart ! 
At last we shall grow hard, too, like the rest. 
And call it self-defence because we are soft. 

And after all, now . . . why should I be pained 
That Romney Leigh, my cousin, should espouse 
This Lady Waldemar ? And, say she held 
Her newly blossomed gladness in my face, . . . 



AURORA LEIGH. 193 

'Twas natural, surely, if not generous, 

Considering how, when winter held her fast, 

I helped the frost with mine, and pained her more 

Than she pains me. Pains me ! — But wherefore pained 

'Tis clear my Cousin Romney wants a wife. 

So, good ! The man's need of the- woman, here, 

Is greater than the woman's of the man, 

And easier served ; for where the man discerns 

A sex (ah, ah, the man can generalize. 

Said he), we see but one ideally 

And really : where we yearn to lose ourselves, 

And melt, like white pearls, in another's wine, 

He seeks to double himself by what he loves, 

And makes his drink more costly by our pearls. 

At board, at bed, at work, and holiday, 

It is not good for man to be alone ; 

And that's his way of thinking, first and last, 

And thus my Cousin Romney wants a wife. 

But then my cousin sets his dignity 

On personal virtue. If he understands 

By love, like others, self-aggrandizement. 

It is that he may verily be great 

By doing rightly and kindly. Once he thought. 

For charitable ends set duly forth 

In heaven's white judgment-book, to marry ... ah. 

We'll call her name Aurora Leigh, although 

She's changed since then ! — and once, for social ends. 

Poor Marian Erie, my sister Marian Erie, 

My woodland sister, sweet maid Marian, 

Whose memory moans on in me like the wind 

Through ill-shut casements, making me more sad 

Than ever I find reasons for. Alas, 

Poor, pretty, plaintive face, embodied ghost ! 



194 AURORA LEIGH. 

He finds it easy, then, to clap thee off 
From pulHng at his sleeve and book and pen, 
He locks thee out at night into the cold, 
Away from butting with thy horny eyes 
Against his crystal dreams, that now he's strong 
To love anew ? that Lady Waldemar 
Succeeds my Marian ? 

After all, why not ? 
He loved not Marian more than once he loved 
Aurora. If he loves at last that third. 
Albeit she prove as slippery as spilt oil 
On marble floors, I will not augur him 
Ill-luck for that. / Good love, howe'er ill-placed. 
Is better for a man's soul in the end 
Than if he loved ill what deserves love well, j 
A Pagan kissing for a step of Pan 
The wild-goat's hoof-print on the loamy down. 
Exceeds our modern thinker who turns back ' 
The strata . . . granite, limestone, coal, and clay, 
Concluding coldly wdth, " Here's law ! where's God ? " 

And then at worse, — if Romney loves her not, — 

At worst, — if he's incapable of love 

(Which may be), — then, indeed, for such a man 

Incapable of love, she's good enough ; 

For she at worst, too, is a woman still. 

And loves him ... as the sort of woman can. 

My loose long hair began to burn and creep. 

Alive to the very ends, about my knees ; 

I swept it backward, as the wind sweeps flame, 

With the passion of my hands. Ah, Romney laughed 

One day . . . (how full the memories come up !) 

— " Your Florence fireflies live on in your hair," 



AURORA LEIGH. 195 



He said, " it gleams so." Well, I wrung them out. 

My fireflies ; made a knot as hard as life 

Of those loose, soft, impracticable curls. 

And then sat down and thought . . .^ She shall not tbnk 

Her thought of me," — and drew my desk, and wrote. 

" Dear Lady Waldemar, I could not speak 
With people round me, nor can sleep to-night, 
And not speak, after the great news I heard 
Of you and of my cousin. May you be 
Most happy, and the good he meant the world 
Replenish his own life ! Say what I say. 
And let my word be sweeter for your mouth, 
As you 2ixeyou ... I only Aurora Leigh." 

That's quiet, guarded : though she hold it up 

Against the light, she'll not see through it more 

Than lies there to be seen. So much for pride ; 

And now for peace a little. Let me stop 

All writing back ..." Sweet thanks, my sweetest friend. 

You've made more joyful my great joy itself." 

— No, that's too simple : she would twist it thus, 

" My joy would still be as sweet as thyme in drawers. 

However shut up in the dark and dry ; 

But violets aired and dewed by love like yours 

Outsmell all thyme : we keep that in our clothes. 

But drop the other down our bosoms till 

They smell like" ... Ah ! I see her writing back 

Just so. She'll make a nosegay of her words, 

And tie it with blue ribbons at the end 

To suit a poet. Pshaw ! 

And then we'll have 
The call to church ; the broken, sad, bad dream 
Dreamed out at last ; the marriage-vow complete 



196 AURORA LEIGH. 



With the marriage-breakfast ; praying in white gloves, 
Drawn off in haste for drinking pagan-toasts 
In somewhat stronger wine than any sipped 
By gods since Bacchus had his way with grapes. 

A postscript stops all that and rescues me. 

" You need not write. I have been overworked, 

And think of leaving London, England even, 

And hastening to get nearer to the sun, 

Where men sleep better. So, adieu ! " I fold 

And seal ; and now I'm out of all the coil : 

I breathe now, I spring upward like a branch 

The ten-years' schoolboy with a crooked stick 

May pull down to his level in search of nuts, 

But cannot hold a moment. How we twang 

Back on the blue sky, and assert our height, 

While he stares after ! Now, the wonder seems 

That I could wrong myself by such a doubt. 

We poets always have uneasy hearts, 

Because our hearts, large-rounded as the globe, 

Can turn but one side to the sun at once. 

We are used to dip our artist hands in gall 

And potash, trying potentialities 

Of alternated color, till at last 

We get confused, and wonder for our skin 

How nature tinged it first. Well, here's the true 

Good flesh-color : I recognize my hand, 

Which Romney Leigh may clasp as just a friend's, 

And keep his clean. 

And now, my Italy. 
Alas ! if we could ride with naked souls. 
And make no noise, and pay no price at all, 
I would have seen thee sooner, Italy ; 
For still I have heard thee crying through my life. 



AURORA LEIGH. ^97 



Thou piercing silence of ecstatic graves, 
Men call that name. 

But even a witch to-day 
Must melt down golden pieces in the nard, 
Wherewith to anoint her broomstick ere she rides 
And poets evermore are scant of gold, 
And if they find a piece behind the door. 
It turns by sunset to a withered leaf. 
The Devil himself scarce trusts his patented 
Gold-making art to any who make rhymes. 
But culls his Faustus from philosophers. 
And not from poets. '' Leave my Job," said God ; 
And so the Devil leaves him without pence. 
And poverty proves plainly special grace. 
In these new, just, administrative times 
Men clamor for an order of merit : why ? 
Here's black bread on the table, and no wine ! 

At least I am a poet in being poor. 

Thank God ! I wonder if the manuscript 

Of my long poem, if 'twere sold outright. 

Would fetch enough to buy me shoes to go 

Afoot (thrown in, the necessary patch 

For the other side the Alps) ? It cannot be. 

I fear that I must sell this residue 

Of my father's books, although the Elzevirs 

Have fly-leaves over-written by his hand 

In faded notes as thick and fine and brown 

As cobwebs on a tawny monument 

Of the old Greeks — conferenda hcec cum his — 

Corrupte citat — lege pothh, 

And so on, in the scholar's regal way 

Of giving judgment on the parts of speech. 

As if he sate on all twelve thrones uppiled, 



1 98 AURORA LEIGH. 

Arraigning Israel. Ay, but books and notes 

Must go together. And this Proclus, too, 

In these dear quaint contracted Grecian type 

Fantastically crumpled, like his thoughts, 

Which would not seem too plain ; you go round twice 

For one step forward, then you take it back, 

Because you're somewhat giddy ; there's the rule 

For Proclus. Ah, I stained this middle leaf 

With pressing in't my Florence irisbell. 

Long stalk and all. My father chided me 

For that stain of blue blood. I recollect 

The peevish turn his voice took, — " Silly girls ! 

Who plant their flowers in our philosophy 

To make it fine, and only spoil the book. 

No more of it, Aurora." Yes — no more. 

Ah, blame of love, that's sweeter than all praise 

Of those who love not ! 'Tis so lost to me, 

I cannot, in such beggared life, afford 

To lose my Proclus — not for Florence even. 



The kissing Judas, Wolff, shall go instead, 
Who builds us such a royal book as this 
To honor a chief poet, folio-built, 
And writes above, " The house of Nobody ! " 
Who floats in cream as rich as any sucked 
From Juno's breasts, the broad Homeric lines, 
And while with their spondaic prodigious mouths 
They lap the lucent margins as babe-gods, 
Proclaims them bastards. Wolff's an atheist ; 
And if the Iliad fell out, as he says. 
By mere fortuitous concourse of old songs, 
Conclude as much, too, for the universe. 

That Wolff, those Platos : sweep the upper shelves 



AURORA LEIGH. 1 99 

As clean as this, and so I am almost rich, 
Which means, not forced to think of being poor 
In sight of ends. To-morrow : no delay. 
I'll wait in Paris till good Carrington 
Dispose of such, and, having chaffered for 
My book's price with the publisher, direct 
All proceeds to me. Just a line to ask 
His help. 

And now I come, my Italy, 
My own hills ! Are you 'ware of me, my hills, — 
How I burn toward you ? do you feel to-night 
The urgency and yearning of my soul. 
As sleeping mothers feel the sucking babe, 
And smile ? Nay, not so much as when in heat 
Vain lightnings catch at your inviolate tops 
And tremble, while ye are steadfast. Still ye go 
Your own determined, calm, indifferent way 
Toward sunrise, shade by shade, and light by light, 
Of all the grand progression naught left out. 
As if God verily made you for yourselves. 
And would not interrupt your life with ours, 



SIXTH BOOK. 



The English have a scornful insular way 
Of calling the French light. The levity 
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands ; 
For, say a foolish thing but oft enough 
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds. 
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,/ 
By reiteration chiefly), the same thing / 



200 AURORA LEIGH. 



Shall pass at last for absolutely wise, 
And not with fools exclusively. And so 
We say the French are light, as if we said 
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk : 
Say, rather, cats are milked, and milch-cows mew ; 
For what is lightness but inconsequence. 
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause. 
Compelled by neither ? Is a bullet light. 
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye 
Winks and the heart beats one, to flatten itself 
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall 
A hundred paces off ? Even so direct, 
So sternly undivertible of aim. 
Is this French people. 

All idealists. 
Too absolute and earnest, with them all 
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh ; 
And still, devouring the safe interval 
Which nature placed between the thought and act 
With those too fiery and impatient souls. 
They threaten conflagration to the world. 
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on 
Impossible practice. Set your orators 
To blow upon them with loud, windy mouths. 
Through w^atchw'ord phrases, jest, or sentiment. 
Which drive our burly brutal English mobs, 
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow, — 
This light French people will not thus be driven. 
They turn indeed ; but then they turn upon 
Some central pivot of their thought and choice, 
And veer out by the force of holding fast. 
That's hard to understand, for Englishmen 
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained 
To trace the involutions, valve by valve. 



AURORA LEIGH. 20I 

In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth 
And mark what subtly fine integument 
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's 
Comes concrete to us, to be understood, 
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately 
To suit our ways of thought and reverence ; 
The special form, with us, being still the thing. 
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy 
By mother's birth and grave, by father's grave 
And memory, let it-be, — a poet's heart' 
Can swell to a pair of nationalities, 
However ill-lodged in a woman's breast. 

And so I am strong to love this noble France, 

This poet of the nations, who dreams on 

And wails on (while the household goes to wreck) 

Forever, after some ideal good. 

Some equal poise of sex, some unvowed love 

Inviolate, some spontaneous brotherhood. 

Some wealth that leaves none poor and finds none tired. 

Some freedom of the many that respects 

The wisdom of the few. Heroic dreams ! 

Sublime to dream so ; natural to wake ; 

And sad to use such lofty scaffoldings, 

Erected for the building of a church. 

To build, instead, a brothel or a prison. 

May God save France ! 

And if at last she sighs 
Her great soul up into a great man's face, 
To flush his temples out so gloriously 
That few dare carp at Caesar for being bald, 
What then ? This Caesar represents, not reigns. 
And is no despot, though twice absolute : 
This head has all the people for a heart ; 



202 AURORA LEIGH. 

This purple's lined with the democracy, — 
Now let him see to it ! for a rent within 
Would leave irreparable rags without. 

A serious riddle : find such anywhere 

Except in France, and, when 'tis found in France, 

Be sure to read it rightly. So, I mused 

Up and down, up and down, the terraced streets, 

The glittering boulevards, the white colonnades. 

Of fair fantastic Paris, who wears trees 

Like plumes, as if man made them, spire and tower, 

As if they had grown by nature, tossing up 

Her fountains in the sunshine of the squares. 

As if in beauty's game she tossed the dice. 

Or blew the silver down-balls of her dreams 

To sow futurity with seeds of thought. 

And count the passage of her festive hours. 

The city swims in verdure, beautiful 

As Venice on the waters, — the sea-swan. 

What bosky gardens dropped in close-walled courts 

Like plums in ladies' laps who start and laugh ! 

What miles of streets that run on after trees. 

Still carrying all the necessary shops. 

Those open caskets with the jewels seen ! 

And trade is art, and art's philosophy, 

In Paris. There's a silk, for instance, there. 

As worth an artist's study for the folds, 

As that bronze opposite ! nay, the bronze has faults ; 

Art's here too artful, — conscious as a maid 

Who leans to mark her shadow on the wall 

Until she lose a 'vantage in her step. 

Yet art walks forward, and knows where to walk : 

The artists also are idealists, 



AURORA LEIGH. 203 



Too absolute for nature, logical 

To austerity in the application of 

The special theory ; not a soul content 

To paint a crooked pollard and an ass, 

As the English will, because they find it so, 

And like it somehow. — There the old Tuileries 

Is pulling its high cap down on its eyes. 

Confounded, conscience-stricken, and amazed 

By the apparition of a new fair face 

In those devouring mirrors. Through the grate 

Within the gardens, what a heap of babes. 

Swept up like leaves beneath the chestnut-trees 

From every street and alley of the town. 

By ghosts, perhaps, that blow too bleak this way 

A-looking for their heads ! dear, pretty babes, 

I wish them luck to have their ball-play out 

Before the next change. Here the air is thronged 

With statues poised upon their columns fine. 

As if to stand a moment were a feat. 

Against that blue ! What squares ! what breathing-room 

For a nation that runs fast, ay, runs against 

The dentist's teeth at the corner in pale rows. 

Which grin at progress, in an epigram ! 

I walked the day out, listening to the chink 

Of the first Napoleon's bones in his second grave, 

By victories guarded 'neath the golden dom 

Tha caps all Paris like a bubble. " Shall 

These dry bones live ? " thought Louis Philippe once. 

And lived to know. Herein is argument 

For kings and politicians, but still more 

For poets, who bear buckets to the well 

Of ampler draught. 

These crowds are very good 



204 AURORA LEIGH. 

For meditation (when we are very strong), 

Though love of beauty makes us timorous, 

And draws us backward from the coarse town-sights 

To count the daisies upon dappled fields, 

And hear the streams bleat on among the hills 

In innocent and indolent repose ; 

AVhile still with silken elegiac thoughts 

We wind out from us the distracting world , 

And die into the chr}-salis of a man, 

And leave the best that may, .0 come of us. 

In some brown moth. I would be bold, and bear. 

To look into the swarthiest face of things. 

For God's sake who has made them. 

Six days' work 
The last day shutting 'twixt its dawn and eve 
The whole work bettered of the previous five ! 
Since God collected and resumed in man 
The firmaments, the strata, and the lights, 
Fish, fowl, and beast, and insect, — all their trains 
Of various life caught back upon his arm. 
Reorganized, and constituted man. 
The microcosm, the adding-up of works ; 
Within whose fluttering nostrils, then, at last 
Consummating himself the Maker sighed, 
As some strong winner at the foot-race sighs 
Touching the goal. 

Humanity is great ; 
And if I would not rather pore upon 
An ounce of common, ugly, human dust. 
An artisan's palm or a peasant's brow, 
Unsmooth, ignoble, save to me and God, 
Than track old Nilus to his silver roots. 
Or wait on all the changes of the moon 
Among the mountain-peaks of Thessaly 



AURORA LEIGH. 205 

(Until her magic crystal round itself 

For many a witch to see in) — set it down 

As weakness, strength by no means. How is this, 

That men of science, osteologists 

And surgeons, beat some poets in respect 

For nature? — count naught common or unclean, 

Spend raptures upon perfect specimens 

Of indurated veins, distorted joints, 

Or beautiful new cases of curved spine, 

"While we, we are shocked at nature's falling off, 

We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains. 

We will not, when she sneezes, look at her, 

Not even to say, " God bless her ! " That's our wrong : 

For that, she will not trust us often with 

Her larger sense of beauty and desire, 

But tethers us to a lily or a rose. 

And bids us diet on the dew inside, 

Left ignorant that the hungry beggar-boy 

(Who stares unseen against our absent eyes. 

And wonders at the gods that we must be, 

To pass so careless for the oranges !) 

Bears yet a breastful of a fellow-world 

To this world, undisparaged, undespoiled. 

And (while we scorn him for a flower or two, 

As being, Heaven help us, less poetical) 

Contains himself both flowers and firmaments 

And surging seas and aspectable stars, 

And all that we would push him out of sight 

In order to see nearer. Let us pray 

God's grace to keep God's image in repute, 

That so the poet and philanthropist 

(Even I and Romney) may stand side by side, 

Because we both stand face to face with men, 

Contemplating the people in the rough, 



206 AURORA LEIGH. 



Yet each so follow a vocation, his 
And mine. 

I walked on, musing with myself 
On life and art, and whether after all 
A larger metaphysics might not help 
Our physics, a completer poetry 
Adjust our daily life and vulgar wants 
More fully than the special outside plans, 
Phalansteries, material institutes. 
The civil conscriptions, and lay monasteries 
Preferred by -modern thinkers, as they thought 
The bread of man indeed made all his life. 
And washing seven times in the " People's Baths " 
Were sovereign for a people's leprosy. 
Still leaving out the essential prophet's word 
That comes in power. On which we thunder down, 
We prophets, poets, — Virtue's in the word/ 
The maker burnt the darkness up with his, 
To inaugurate the use of vocal life ; 
And plant a poet's word even deep enough 
In any man's breast, looking presently 
For offshoots, you have done more for the man 
Than if you dressed him in a broadcloth coat. 
And warmed his Sunday pottage at your fire. 
Yet Romney leaves me. . . . 

God ! what face is that ? 
O Romney, O Marian ! 

Walking on the quays. 
And pulling thoughts to pieces leisurely, 
As if I caught at grasses in a field. 
And bit them slow between my absent lips. 
And shred them with my hands . . . 

What face is that ? 
What a face, what a look, what a likeness ! Full on mine 



AURORA LEIGH. 20/ 



The sudden blow of it came down, till all 

My blood swam, my eyes dazzled, then I sprang . 

It was as if a meditative man 
Were dreaming out a summer afternoon. 
And watching gnats a-prick upon a pond, 
When something floats up suddenly, out there, ^ 
Turns over ... a dead face, known once alive . . 
So old, so new ! it would be dreadful now 
To lose the sight, and keep the doubt of this : 
He plunges — ha ! he has lost it in the splash. 

I plunged — I tore the crowd up, either side, 
And rushed on, forward, forward, after her. 
Her ? whom ? 

A woman sauntered slow in front. 
Munching an apple ; she left off amazed 
As if I had snatched it : that's not she, at least. 
A man walked arm-linked with a lady veiled, 
Both heads dropped closer than the need of talk : 
They started ; he forgot her with his face, 
And she, herself, and clung to him as if 
My look were fatal. Such a stream of folk, 
And all with cares and business of their own ! 
I ran the whole quay down against their eyes — 
No Marian ; nowhere Marian. Almost, now, 
I could call " Marian, Marian ! " with the shriek 
Of desperate creatures calling for the dead. 
Where is she ? was she, was she anywhere ? 
I stood still, breathless, gazing, straining out 
In every uncertain distance, till at last 
A gentleman, abstracted as myself. 
Came full against me, then resolved the clash 
In voluble excuses, — obviously 



2o8 AURORA LEIGH. 

Some learned member of the Institute 

Upon his way there, walking, for his health, 

While meditating on the last " Discourse ; " 

Pinching the empty air 'twixt finger and thumb. 

From which the snuff being ousted by that shock 

Defiled his snow-white waistcoat, duly pricked 

At the button-hole with honorable red ; 

" Madam, your pardon," — there he swerved from me 

A metre, as confounded as he had heard 

That Dumas would be chosen to fill up 

The next chair vacant, by his " men /;/ us.'' 

Since when was genius found respectable ? 

It passes in its place, indeed, which means 

The seventh floor back, or else the hospital. 

Revolving pistols are ingenious things ; 

But prudent men (academicians are) 

Scarce keep them in the cupboard next the prunes. 

And so, abandoned to a bitter mirth, 

I loitered to my inn. O world, O world, 

O jurists, rhymers, dreamers, what you please, 

We play a weary game of hide-and-seek ! 

We shape a figure of our fantasy, 

Call nothing something, and run after it 

And lose it, lose ourselves, too, in the search, 

Till clash against us comes a somebody 

Who also has lost something and is lost, — 

Philosopher against philanthropist, 

Academician against poet, man 

As^ainst woman, against the living, the dead — 

Then home with a bad headache and worse jest. 

To change the water for my heliotropes 

And yellow roses. Paris has such flowers, 

But England also. 'Twas a yellow rose, 



AURORA LEIGH. 209 

By that south window of the little house, 
My Cousin Romney gathered with his hand 
On all my birthdays for me, save the last ; 
And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough, 
For roses to stay after. 

Now, my maps. 
I must not linger here from Italy 
Till the last nightingale is tired of song. 
And the last firefly dies off in the maize. 
My soul's in haste to leap into the sun. 
And scorch and seethe itself to a liner mood. 
Which here in this chill north is apt to stand 
Too stiffly in former moulds. 

That face persists. 
It floats up, it turns over in my mind 
As like to Marian as one dead is like 
The same alive. In very deed a face. 
And not a fancy, though it vanished so : 
The small fair face between the darks of hair 
I used to liken, when I saw her first. 
To a point of moonlit water down a well ; 
The low brow, the frank space between the eyes. 
Which always had the brown pathetic look 
Of a dumb creature, who had been beaten once. 
And never since was easy with the world. 
Ah, ah ! now I remember perfectly 
Those eyes to-day : how overlarge they seemed ! 
As if some patient passionate despair 
(Like a coal dropt and forgot on tapestry, 
Which slowly burns a widening circle out) 
Had burnt them larger, larger. And those eyes, 
To-day, I do remember, saw me too. 
As I saw them, with conscious lids astrain 
In recognition. Now, a fantasy. 



2IO AURORA LEIGH. 



A simple shade or image of the brain, 
Is merely passive, does not retroact, 
Is seen, but sees not. 

'Twas a real face. 
Perhaps a real Marian. 

Which being so, 
I ought to write to Romney, " Marian's here : 
Be comforted for Marian." 

My pen fell ; 
My hands struck sharp together, as hands do 
Which hold at nothing. Can I write to hii7i 
A half-truth ? can I keep my own soul blind 
To the other half ... the worse ? What are our souls, 
If still, to run on straight a sober pace, 
Nor start at every pebble or dead leaf, 
They must wear blinkers, ignore facts, suppress 
Six-tenths of the road ? Confront the truth, my soul ! 
And, oh ! as truly as that was Marian's face. 
The arms of that same Marian clasped a thing 
, . . Not hid so well beneath the scanty shawl, 
I cannot name it now for what it was. 

A child. Small business has a castaway, 

Like Marian, with that crown of prosperous wives, 

At which the gentlest she grows arrogant, 

And says, " My child.'' Who finds an emerald ring 

On a beggar's middle finger, and requires 

More testimony to convict a thief ? 

A child's too costly for so mere a wretch : 

She filched it somewhere : and it means with her. 

Instead of honor, blessing, merely shame. 

I cannot write to Romney, " Here she is 

Here's Marian found ! I'll set you on her track. 

I saw her here in Paris . . . and her child. 



AURORA LEIGH. 211 

She put away your love two years ago, 
But, plainly, not to starve. You suffered then 
And now that you've forgot her utterly, 
As any last year's annual, in whose place 
You've planted a thick flowering evergreen, 
I choose, being kind, to write and tell you this 
To make you wholly easy, — she's not dead. 
But only . . . damned." 

Stop there : I go too fast ,- 
I'm cruel like the rest, — in haste to take 
The first stir in the arras for a rat, 
And set my barking, biting thoughts upon't. 
— A child ! what then .'' Suppose a neighbor's sick, 
And asked her, " Marian, carry out my child 
In this spring air," — I punish her for that ? 
Or say, the child should hold her round the neck 
For good child reasons, that he liked it so. 
And would not leave her, — she had winning ways, — 
I brand her, therefore, that she took the child 1 
Not so. 

I wdll not wTite to Romney Leigh, 
For now he's happy, and she may, indeed. 
Be guilty, and the knowledge of her fault 
Would draggle his smooth time. But I, whose days 
Are not so fine they cannot bear the rain, 
And who, moreover, having seen her face, 
Must see it again . . . will see it, by my hopes 
Of one day seeing heaven, too. The police 
Shall track her, hound her, ferret their own soil : 
We'll dig this Paris to its catacombs 
But certainly we'll find her, have her out. 
And save her, if she will or not, child 
Or no child, — if a child, then one to save ! 



212 AURORA LEIGH. 



The long weeks passed on without consequence. 

As easy find a footstep on the sand 

The morning after spring-tide, as the trace 

Of Marian's feet between the incessant surfs 

Of this Uve flood. She may have moved this way ; 

But so the star-fish does, and crosses out 

The dent of her small shoe. The foiled police 

Renounced me. " Could they find a girl and child, 

No other signalment but girl and child ? 

No data shown but noticeable eyes. 

And hair in masses, low upon the brow. 

As if it were an iron crown, and pressed ? 

Friends heighten, and suppose they specify : 

Why, girls with hair and eyes are everywhere 

In Paris ; they had turned me up in vain, 

No Marian Erie indeed, but certainly 

Mathildes, Justines, Victoires ... or, if I sought 

The English, Betsies, Saras, by the score. 

They might as well go out into the fields 

To find a speckled bean that's somehow specked, 

And somewhere in the pod." They left me so. 

Shall / leave Marian ? have I dreamed a dream ? 

— I thank God I have found her ! I must say 
" Thank God " for finding her, although 'tis true 
I find the world more sad and wicked for't. 
But she — 

I'll write about her j^resently. 
My hand's a-tremble, as I had just caught up 
My heart to write with in the place of it. 
At least you'd take these letters to be writ 
At sea, in storm ! — wait now . . . 

A simple chance 
Did all. I could not sleep last night, and, tired 



AURORA LEIGH. 213 

Of turning on my pillow and harder thoughts, 

Went out at early morning, when the air 

Is delicate with some last starry touch. 

To wander through the market-place of flowers 

(The prettiest haunt in Paris), and make sure 

At worst that there were roses in the world. 

So wandering, musing, with the artist's eye, 

That keeps the shade-side of the thing it loves. 

Half-absent, whole observing, while the crowd 

Of young, vivacious, and black-braided heads 

Dipped, quick as finches in a blossomed tree, 

Among the nosegays, cheapening this and that 

In such a cheerful twitter of rapid speech, — 

My heart leapt in me, startled by a voice 

That slowly, faintly, with long breaths that marked 

The interval between the wish and word. 

Inquired in stranger's French, " Would that be much, 

That branch of flowering mountain-gorse ? " — " So much ? 

Too much for me, then ! " turning the face round 

So close upon me that I felt the sigh 

It turned with. 

" Marian, Marian ! " — face to face — 
" Marian ! I find you. Shall I let you go 1 " 
I held her two slight wrists with both my haii is ; 
" Ah, Marian, Marian, can I let you go ? " 
She fluttered from me like a cyclamen 
As white, which, taken in a sudden wind, 
Beats on against the palisade. " Let pass," 
She said at last. " I will not," I replied : 
" I lost my sister Marian many days. 
And sought her ever in my walks and prayers, 
And now I find her ... do we throw away 
The bread we worked and prayed for — crumble it 
And drop it ... to do even so by thee 



214 AURORA LEIGH. 

Whom still I've hungered after more than bread, 
My sister Marian ? Can I hurt thee, dear ? 
Then why distrust me ? Never tremble so. 
Come with me, rather, where we'll talk and live, 
And none shall vex us. I've a home for you 
And me, and no one else." . . . 

She shook her head. 
" A home for you and me and no one else 
111 suits one of us : I prefer to such 
A roof of grass on which a flower might spring, 
Less costly to me than the cheapest here ; 
And yet I could not at this hour afford 
A like home even. That you offer yours 
I thank you. You are as good as heaven itself — 
As good as one I knew before . . . Farewell ! " 

I loosed her hands. " In his name no farewell ! " 
(She stood as if I held her.) " For his sake, 
For his sake, — Romney's ! by the good he meant, 
Ay, always ! by the love he pressed for once, 
And by the grief, reproach, abandonment, 
He took in change "... 

" He, Romney ! who grieved him ? 
Who had the heart for't ? what reproach touched hi?7i ? 
Be merciful — speak quickly. " 

" Therefore come," 
I answered with authority. " I think 
We dare to speak such things and name such names 
In the open squares of Paris." 

Not a word 
She said, but in a gentle, humbled way 
(As one who had forgot herself in grief) 
Turned round, and followed closely where I went, 
As if I led her by a narrow plank 



AURORA LEIGH. 21$ 

Across devouring waters, step by step ; 
And so in silence we walked on a mile. 

And then she stopped : her face was white as wax. 
" We go much farther ? " 

"You are ill," I asked, 
" Or tired .? " 

She looked the whiter for her smile. 
•'There's one at home," she said, "has need of me 
By this time ; and I must not let him wait." 

" Not even," I asked, " to hear of Romney Leigh ? " 

" Not even," she said, " to hear of Mister Leigh." 

" In that case," I resumed, '' I go with you. 
And we can talk the same thing there as here. 
None waits for me : I have my day to spend." 

Her lips moved in spasm without a sound ; 

But then she spoke. " It shall be as you please, 

And better so — 'tis shorter seen than told ; 

And, though you will not find me worth your pains, 

That, even, may be worth some pains to know 

For one as good as you are." 

Then she led 
The way ; and I, as by a narrow plank 
Across the devouring waters, followed her. 
Stepping by her footsteps, breathing by her breath, 
And holding her with eyes that would not slip ; 
And so, without a word, we walked a mile. 
And so another mile, without a word. 

Until the peopled streets being all dismissed, 
House rows and groups all scattered like a flock, 



AURORA LEIGH. 



The market-gardens thickened, and the long 

White walls beyond, like spiders' outside threads, 

Stretched, feeling blindly toward the country-fields 

Through half-built habitations and half-dug 

Foundations, — intervals of trenchant chalk 

That bit betwixt the grassy, uneven turfs 

Where goats (vine-tendrils trailing from their mouths) 

Stood perched on edges of the cellarage 

Which should be, staring as about to leap 

To find their coming Bacchus. All the place 

Seemed less a cultivation than a waste. 

Men work here only, — scarce begin to live : 

All's sad, the country struggling with the town, 

Like an untamed hawk upon a strong man's fist. 

That beats its wings and tries to get away, 

And cannot choose be satisfied so soon 

To hop through court-yards with its right foot tied. 

The vintage plains and pastoral hills in sight. 

We stopped beside a house too high and slim 

To stand there by itself, and waiting till 

Five others, two on this side, three on that, 

Should grow up from the sullen second floor, 

They pause at now, to build it to a row. 

The upper windows partly were unglazed 

Meantime, — a meager, unripe house: a line 

Of rigid poplars elbowed it behind ; 

And just in front, beyond the lime and bricks 

That wronged the grass between it and the road, 

A great acacia with its slender trunk. 

And overpoise of multitudinous leaves 

(In which a hundred fields might spill their dew 

And intense verdure, yet find room enough). 

Stood reconciling all the place with green. 



AURORA LEIGH. 217 



I followed up the stair upon her step. 

She hurried upward, shot across a face, 

A woman's, on the landing, — " How now, now ! 

Is no one to have holidays but you ? 

You said an hour, and stay three hours, I think, 

And Julie waiting for your betters here ? 

Why, if he had waked, he might have waked, for me.' 

— Just murmuring an excusing word, she passed 

And shut the rest out with the chamber-door. 

Myself shut in beside her. 

'Twas a room 
Scarce larger than a grave, and near as bare, — 
Two stools, a pallet-bed. I saw the room : 
A mouse could find no sort of shelter in't 
Much less a greater secret ; curtainless, — 
The window fixed you with its torturing eye. 
Defying you to take a step apart. 
If, peradventure, you would hide a thing. 
I saw the whole room, I and Marian there 
Alone. 

Alone ? She threw her bonnet off. 
Then, sighing as 'twere sighing the last time. 
Approached the bed, and drew a shawl away : 
You could not peel a fruit you fear to bruise 
More calmly and more carefully than so, — 
Nor would you find within, a rosier flushed 
Pomegranate — 

There he lay upon his back, 
The yearling creature, warm and moist with life 
To the bottom of his dimples, — to the ends 
Of the lovely tumbled curls about his face ; 
For since he had been covered overmuch 
To keep him from the light-glare, both his cheeks 
Were hot and scarlet as the first live rose 



2l8 AURORA LEIGH. 

The shepherd's heart-blood ebbed away into 
The faster for his love. And love was here 
As instant : in the pretty baby-mouth, 
Shut close, as if for dreaming that it sucked ; 
The little naked feet, drawn up the way 
Of nestled birdlings ; everything so soft 
And tender, — to the tiny holdfast hands, 
Which, closing on a finger into sleep. 
Had kept the mould oft. 

While we stood there dumb ; 
For oh, that it should take such innocence 
To prove just guilt, I thought, and stood there dumb, — 
The light upon his eyelids pricked them wide, 
And staring out at us with all their blue, 
As half perplexed between the angelhood 
He had been away to visit in his sleep, 
And our most mortal presence, gradually 
He saw his mother's face, accepting it 
In change for heaven itself with such a smile 
As might have well been learnt there, never moved. 
But smiled on in a drowse of ecstasy. 
So happy (half with her and half with heaven) 
He could not have the trouble to be stirred, 
But smiled and lay there. Like a rose, I said ? 
As red and still indeed as any rose 
That blows in all the silence of its leaves, 
Content, in blowing, to fulfil its life. 

She leaned above him (drinking him as wine) 
In that extremity of love 'twill pass 
For agony or rapture, seeing that love 
Includes the whole of nature, rounding it 
To love ... no more, since more can never be 
Than just love. Self-forgot, cast out of self, 



AURORA LEIGH. 219 

And drowning in the transport of the sight, 

Her whole pale passionate face, mouth, forehead, eyes, 

One gaze she stood ; then, slowly as he smiled, 

She smiled, too, slowly, smiling unaware. 

And drawing from his countenance to hers 

A fainter red, as if she watched a flame. 

And stood in it aglow. " How beautiful ! " 

Said she. 

I answered, trying to be cold. 
(Must sin have compensation, was my thought, 
As if it were a holy thing like grief ? 
And is a woman to be fooled aside 
From putting vice down, with that woman's toy, 
A baby?) — " Ay ! the child is well enough," 
I answered. If his mother's arms are clean. 
They need be glad, of course, in clasping such ; 
But, if not, I would rather lay my hand, 
Were I she, on God's brazen altar-bars 
Red-hot with burning sacrificial lambs. 
Than touch the sacred curls of such a child." 

She plunged her fingers in his clustering locks 

As one who would not be afraid of fire ; 

And then, with indrawn steady utterance, said, 

" My lamb, my lamb ! although through such as thou 

The most unclean got courage, and approached 

To God, once, now they cannot, even with men, 

Find grace enough for pity and gentle words." 

" My Marian," I made answer, grave and sad, 
" The priest who stole a lamb to offer him 
Was still a thief. And if a woman steals 
(Through God's own barrier-hedges of true love, 
Which fence out license in securing love) 



220 " AURORA LEIGH. 

A child like this, that smiles so in her face, 

She is no mother, but a kidnapper, 

And he's a dismal orphan, not a son, 

Whom all her kisses cannot feed so full 

He will not miss hereafter a pure home 

To live in, a pure heart to lean against, 

A pure good mother's name and memory 

To hope by when the world grows thick and bad, 

And he feels out for virtue." 

" Oh ! " she smiled 
With bitter patience, " the child takes his chance ; 
Not much worse off in being fatherless, 
Than I was, fathered. He will say, belike. 
His mother was the saddest creature born ; 
He'll say his mother lived so contrary 
To joy, that even the kindest, seeing her. 
Grew sometimes almost cruel ; he'll not say 
She flew contrarious in the face of God 
With bat-wings of her vices. Stole my child ! 
My flower of earth, my only flower on earth. 
My sweet, my beauty ! "... Up she snatched the child. 
And breaking on him in a storm of tears. 
Drew out her long sobs from their shivering roots. 
Until he took it for a game, and stretched 
His feet, and flapped his eager arms like wings. 
And crowed and gurgled through his infant laugh. 
" Mine, mine ! " she said. " I have as sure a right 
As any glad, proud mother in the world. 
Who sets her darling down to cut his teeth 
Upon her church-ring. If she talks of law, 
I talk of law : I claim my mother-dues 
By law, — the law which now is paramount ; 
The common law, by which the poor and weak 
Are trodden under foot by vicious men, 



AURORA LEIGH. 221 

And loathed forever after by the good. 

Let pass ! I did not filch : I found the child." 

" You found him, Marian ? " 

" Ay, I found him where 
I found my curse, — in the gutter with my shame 
What have you, any of you, to say to that, 
Who all are happy, and sit safe and high. 
And never spoke before to arraign my right 
To grief itself ? What, what, . . . being beaten down 
By hoofs of maddened oxen into a ditch. 
Half-dead, whole mangled, when a girl at last 
Breathes, sees . . . and finds there, bedded in her flesh. 
Because of the extremity of the shock. 
Some coin of price ! . . . and when a good man comes 
(That's God ! the best men are not quite as good) 
And says, ' I dropped the coin there : take it, you. 
And keep it, it shall pay you for the loss,' — 
You all put up your finger — ' See the thief ! 
Observe what precious thing she has come to filch ! 
How bad those girls are ! ' Oh, my flower, my pet, 
I dare forget I have you in my arms. 
And fly off to be angry with the world. 
And fright you, hurt you with my tempers, till 
You double up your lip ? Why, that indeed 
Is bad : a naughty mother ! " 

" You mistake," 
I interrupted. " If I loved you not, 
I should not, Marian, certainly be here." 

"Alas ! " she said, " you are so very good ; 
And yet I wish, indeed, you had never come 
To make me sob until I vex the child. 
It is not wholesome for these pleasure-plats 



222 AURORA LEIGH. 

To be so early watered by our brine. 

And then who knows ? he may not Hke me now 

As well, perhaps, as ere he saw me fret: 

One's ugly fretting. He has eyes the same 

As angels, but he cannot see as deep ; 

And so I've kept forever in his sight 

A sort of smile to please him, as you place 

A green thing from the garden in a cup 

To make believe it grows there. Look, my sweet, 

My cowslip-ball ! we've done with that cross face, 

And here's the face come back you used to like. 

Ah, ah ! he laughs : he likes me. Ah ! Miss Leigh, 

You're great and pure ; but were you purer still, — 

As if you had walked, we'll say no otherwhere 

Than up and down the New Jerusalem, 

And held your trailing lutestring up yourself 

From brushing the twelve stones, for fear of some 

Small speck as little as a needle-prick. 

White stitched on white, — the child would keep to me, 

Would choose his poor lost Marian, like me best, 

And though you stretched your arms, cry back and cling, 

As we do when God says it's time to die 

And bids us ga up higher. Leave us, then : 

We two are happy. Does he push me oft? 

He's satisfied with me, as I with him." 

" So soft to one, so hard to others ! Nay," 
I cried, more angry that she melted me, 
"We make henceforth a cushion of our faults 
To sit and practise easy virtues on ? 
I thought a child was given to sanctify 
A woman, — set her in the sight of all 
The clear-eyed heavens, a chosen minister 
To do their business, and lead spirits up 



AURORA LEIGH. 223 

The difficult blue heights. A woman lives 

Not bettered, quickened toward the truth and good 

Though being a mother ? ... Then she's none, although 

She damps her baby's cheeks by kissing them, 

As we kill roses." 

" Kill ! O Christ ! " she said, 
And turned her wild, sad face from side to side 
With most despairing wonder in it. " What, 
What have you in your souls against me then, 
All of you ? Am I wicked, do you think ? 
God knows me, trusts me with the child — but you, 
You think me really wicked ? " 

" Complaisant," 
I answered softly, " to a wrong you've done. 
Because of certain profits, which is wrong 
Beyond the first wrong, Marian. When you left 
The pure place and the noble heart to take 
The hand of a seducer." . . . 

" Whom ? whose hand ? 
I took the hand of " . . . 

Springing up erect, 
And lifting up the child at full arm's-length. 
As if to bear him like an oriflamme 
Unconquerable to armies of reproach, — 
" By him-^ she said, " my child's head and its curls, 
By these blue eyes no woman born could dare 
A perjury on, I make my mother's oath, 
That if I left that heart to lighten it. 
The blood of mine was still, except for grief ! 
No cleaner maid than I was took a step 
To a sadder end, — no matron-mother now 
Looks backward to her early maidenhood 
Through chaster pulses. I speak steadily ; 
And if I lie so . . . if, being fouled in will 



224 AURORA LEIGH. 

And paltered with in soul by devil's lust, 

I dared to bid this angel take my part . . . 

Would God sit quiet, let us think, in heaven. 

Nor strike me dumb with thunder ? Yet I speak : 

He clears me therefore. What, ' seduced ' 's your word 

Do wolves seduce a wandering fawn in France ? 

Do eagles, who have pinched a lamb with claws, 

Seduce it into carrion ? So with me. 

I was not ever, as you say, seduced, 

But simply murdered." 

There she paused, and sighed. 
With such a sigh as drops from agony 
To exhaustion, — sighin^: while she let the babe 
Slide down upon her bosom from her arms, 
And all her face's light fell after him 
Like a torch quenched in falling. Down she sank, 
And sate upon the bedside with the child. 

But I, convicted, broken utterly. 

With woman's passion clung about her waist. 

And kissed her hair and eyes, — "I have been wrong, 

Sweet Marian "... (weeping in a tender rage), 

*' Sweet, holy Marian ! And now, Marian, now, 

I'll use your oath, although my lips are hard. 

And by the child, my Marian, by the child, 

I swear his mother shall be innocent 

Before my conscience, as in the open Book 

Of Him who reads for judgment. Innocent, 

My sister ! Let the night be ne'er so dark. 

The moon is surely somewhere in the sky : 

So surely is your whiteness to be found 

Through all dark facts. But pardon, pardon me, 

And smile a little, Marian, — for the child. 

If not for me, my sister." 



AURORA LEIGH. 



The poor lip 
Just motioned for the smile, and let it go ; 
And then, with scarce a stirring of the mouth, 
As if a statue spoke that could not breathe, 
But spoke on calm between its marble lips, — 
" I'm glad, I'm very glad, you clear me so. 
I should be sorry that you set me down 
With harlots, or with even a better name 
Which misbecomes his mother. For the rest, 
I am not on a level with your love, 
Nor ever was, you know, but now am worse. 
Because that world of yours has dealt with me 
As when the hard sea bites and chews a stone, 
And changes the first form of it. I've marked 
A shore of pebbles bitten to one shape 
From all the various life of madrepores ; 
And so that little stone called Marian Erie, 
Picked up and dropped by you and another friend. 
Was ground and tortured by the incessant sea. 
And bruised from what she was, — changed ! death's a 

change, 
And she, I said, was murdered : Marian's dead. 
What can you do with people M-hen they are dead, 
But, if you are pious, sing a hymn and go, 
Or, if you are tender, heave a sigh and go. 
But go by all means, and permit the grass 
To keep its green feud up 'twixt them and you ? 
Then leave me, — let me rest. I'm dead, I say. 
And if, to save the child from death as well. 
The mother in me has survived the rest, 
Why, that's God's miracle you must not tax, 
I'm not less dead for that : I'm nothing more 
But just a mother. Only for the child 
I'm warm, and cold, and hungry, and afraid, 



226 AURORA LEIGH. 

And smell the flowers a little, and see the sun, 

And speak still, and am silent, — just for him ! 

I pray you therefore to mistake me not, 

And treat me haply as I were alive ; 

For, though you ran a pin into my soul, 

I think it would not hurt nor trouble me. 

Here's proof, dear lady, — in the market-place 

But now, you promised me to say a word 

About ... a friend, who once, long years ago, 

Took God's place toward me, when he leans and loves. 

And does not thunder . . . whom at last I left. 

As all of us leave God. You thought perhaps 

I seemed to care for hearing of that friend ? 

Now judge me ! We have sate here half an hour 

And talked together of the child and me. 

And I not asked as much as ' What's the thing 

You had to tell me of the friend ... the friend ? ' 

He's sad, I think you said, — he's sick, perhaps ? 

'Tis naught to Marion if he's sad or sick. 

Another would have crawled beside your foot. 

And prayed your words out. Why, a beast, a dog, 

A starved cat, if he had fed it once with milk. 

Would show less hardness. But I'm dead, you see. 

And that explains it." 

Poor, poor thing, she spoke 
And shook her head, as white and calm as frost 
On days too cold for raining any more, 
But still with such a face, so much alive, 
I could not choose but take it on my arm, 
And stroke the placid patience of its cheeks, 
Then told my story out, of Romney Leigh, — 
How, having lost her, sought her, missed her still. 
He, broken-hearted for himself and her, 
Had drawn the curtains of the world awhile 



AURORA LEIGH. 22/ 



As if he had done with morning. There I stopped ; 

For when she gasped, and pressed me with her eyes, 

" And now . . . how is it with him ? tell me now," 

I felt the shame of compensated grief, 

And chose my words with scruple — slowly stepped , 

Upon the slippery stones set here and there 

Across the sliding water. " Certainly, 

As evening empties morning into night. 

Another morning takes the evening up 

With healthful, providential interchange ; 

And though he thought still of her " — 

" Yes, she knew, 

She understood : she had supposed, indeed. 

That as one stops a hole upon a flute, 

At which a new note comes and shapes the tune, 

Excluding her would bring a worthier in. 

And, long ere this, that Lady Waldemar 

He loved so " . . . 

" Loved ! " I started — " loved her so ! 

Now tell me " 

" I will tell you," she replied : 
" But since we're taking oaths, you'll promise first 
That he in England, he, shall never learn 
•In what a dreadful trap his creature here, 
Round whose unworthy neck he had meant to tie 
The honorable ribbon of his name. 
Fell unaware, and came to butchery : 
Because, — I know him, — as he takes to heart 
The grief of every stranger, he's not like 
To banish mine as far as I should choose 
In wishing him most happy. Now he leaves 
To think of me, perverse, who went my way. 
Unkind, and left him ; but if once he knew . . . 
Ah, then, the sharp nail of my cruel wrong 



228 AURORA LEIGH. 



Would fasten me forever in his siglit, 

Like some poor curious bird, through each spread wing 

Nailed high up over a fierce hunter's fire, 

To spoil the dinner of all tender folk 

Come in by chance. Nay, since your Marian's dead, 

You shall not hang her up, but dig a hole. 

And bury her in silence ; ring no bells." 

I answered gayly, though my whole voice wept, 
" We'll ring the joy-bells, not the funeral-bells. 
Because we have her back, dead or alive." 

She never answered that, but shook her head ; 

Then low and calm, as one who, safe in heaven, 

Shall tell a story of his lower life. 

Unmoved by shame or anger, so she spoke. 

She told me she had loved upon her knees, 

As others pray, more perfectly absorbed 

In the act and inspiration. She felt his 

For just his uses, not her own at all. 

His stool to sit on or put up his foot ; 

His cup, to fill with wine or vinegar, 

Whichever drink might please him at the chance, 

For that should please her always , let him write 

His name upon her ... it seemed natural : 

It was most precious, standing on his shelf, 

To wait until he chose to lift his hand. 

Well, well, — I saw her then, and must have seen 

How bright her life went floating on her love, 

Like wicks the housewives send afloat on oil 

Which feeds them to a flame that lasts the night. 

To do good seemed so much his business, 
That having done it she was fain to think 



AURORA LEIGH. 229 

Must fill up his capacity for joy. 

At first she never mooted with herself 

If he was happy, since he made her so ; 

Or if he loved her, being so much beloved. 

Who thinks of asking if the sun is light. 

Observing that it lightens ? who so bold, 

To question God of his felicity .? 

Still less. And thus she took for granted first 

What, first of all, she should have put to proof. 

And sinned against him so, but only so. 

"What could you hope," she said, "of such as she ? 

You take a kid you like, and turn it out 

In some fair garden : though the creature's fond 

And gentle, it will leap upon the beds. 

And break your tulips, bite your tender trees : 

The wonder would be if such innocence 

Spoiled less. A garden is no place for kids." 

And by degrees, when he who had chosen her 

Brought in his courteous and benignant friends 

To spend their goodness on her, which she took 

So very gladly, as a part of his, — 

By slow degrees it broke on her slow sense. 

That she, too, in that Eden of delight 

Was out of place, and, like the silly kid. 

Still did most mischief where she meant most love. 

A thought enough to make a woman mad 

(No beast in this but she may well go mad). 

That saying " I am thine to love and use " 

May blow the plague in her protesting breath 

To the very man for whom she claims to die ; 

That, clinging round his neck, she pulls him down 

And drowns him ; and that, lavishing her soul, 



230 AURORA LEIGH. 

She hales perdition on him. " So, being mad," 
Said Marian . . . 

" Ah ! \vho stirred such thoughts," you ask ? 
" Whose fault it was that she should have such thoughts ? 
None's fault, none's fault. The light comes, and we see : 
But if it were not truly for our eyes, 
There would be nothing seen for all the light : 
And so with Marian. If she saw at last, 
The sense was in her : Lady Waldemar 
Had spoken all in vain else." 

" O my heart, 
O prophet in my heart ! " I cried aloud. 
" Then Lady Waldemar spoke ! " 

" Did she speak ? " 
Mused Marian softly, " or did she only sign ? 
Or did she put a word into her face 
And look, and so impress you with the word } 
Or leave it in the foldings of her gown. 
Like rosemary smells a moment will shake out 
When no one's conscious ? Who shall say, or guess ? 
One thing alone was certain, — from the day 
The gracious lady paid a visit first. 
She, Marian, saw things different, — felt distrust 
Of all that sheltering roof of circumstance 
Her hopes were building into with clay nests : 
Her heart was restless, pacing up and down, 
And fluttering, like dumb creatures before storms, 
Not knowing wherefore she was ill at ease. 

"And still the lady came," said Marian Erie, — 
" Much oftener than he knew it, Mister Leigh. 
She bade me never tell him she had come. 
She liked to love me better than he knew : 
So very kind was Lady Waldemar. 



AURORA LEIGH. 23 1 

And every time she brought with her more Hght, 

And every hght made sorrow clearer . . . Well, 

Ah, well ! we cannot give her blame for that : 

'Twould be the same thing if an angel came, 

Whose right should prove our wrong. And every time 

The lady came she looked more beautiful, 

And spoke more like a flute among green trees, 

Until at last, as one, whose heart being sad 

On hearing lovely music, suddenly 

Dissolves in weeping, I brake out in tears 

Before her, asked her counsel, — ' Had I erred 

In being too happy ? would she set me straight ? 

For she, being wise and good, and born above 

The flats I had never climbed from, could perceive 

If such as I might grow upon the hills. 

And whether such poor herb sufficed to grow 

For Romney Leigh to break his fast upon't ; 

Or would he pine on such, or haply starve ? ' 

She wrapt me in her generous arms at once, 

And let me dream a moment how it feels 

To have a real mother, like some girls ; 

But, when I looked, her face was younger ... ay, 

Youth's too bright not to be a litde hard. 

And beauty keeps itself still uppermost. 

That's true ! Though Lady Waldemar was kind. 

She hurt me, hurt, as if the morning-sun 

Should smite us on the eyelids when we sleep. 

And wake us up with headache. Ay, and soon 

Was light enough to make my heart ache, too. 

She told me truths I asked for, — 'twas my fault, — 

'That Romney could not love me, if he would. 

As men call loving ; there are bloods that flow 

Together, like some rivers, and not mix, 

Through contraries of nature. He, indeed, 



232 AURORA LEIGH. 



Was set to wed me, to espouse my class, 

Act out a rash opinion ; and, once wed. 

So just a man and gentle could not choose 

But make my life as smooth as marriage-ring. 

Bespeak me mildly, keep me a cheerful house, 

With servants, brooches, all the flowers I liked. 

And pretty dresses, silk the whole year round ' . . . 

At which I stopped her, — ' This for me. And now 

For him ? ' She hesitated, truth grew hard ; 

She owned ' 'Twas plain a man like Romney Leigh 

Required a wife more level to himself. 

If day by day he had to bend his height 

To pick up sympathies, opinions, thoughts. 

And interchange the common talk of life, 

Which helps a man to live, as well as talk, 

His days were heavily taxed. Who buys a staff 

To fit the hand, that reaches but the knee ? 

He'd feel it bitter to be forced to miss 

The perfect joy of married, suited pairs. 

Who, bursting through the separating hedge 

Of personal dues with that sweet eglantine 

Of equal love, keep saying, " so we think. 

It strikes us, that's our fancy." ' — When I asked 

If earnest will, devoted love, employed 

In youth like mine, would fail to raise me up. 

As two strong arms will always raise a child 

To a fruit hung overhead, she sighed and sighed . . 

' That could not be,' she feared. ' You take a pink, 

You dig about its roots, and water it, 

And so improve it to a garden-pink, 

But will not change it to a heliotrope ; 

The kind remains. And then the harder truth, — 

This Romney Leigh, so rash to leap a pale. 

So bold for conscience, quick for martyrdom. 



AURORA LEIGH. 233 

Would suffer steadily and never flinch, 

But suffer surely and keenly, when his class 

Turned shoulder on him for a shameful match, 

And set him up as ninepin in their talk 

To bowl him down with jestings.' There she paused, 

And when I used the pause in doubting that 

We wronged him, after all, in what we feared ^- 

' Suppose such things could never touch him more 

In his high conscience (if the things should be) 

Than, when the queen sits in an upper room. 

The horses in the street can spatter her ! ' — 

A moment, hope came ; but the lady closed 

That door, and nicked the lock, and shut it out, 

Observing wisely, that ' the tender heart 

Which made him over-soft to a lower class 

Would scarcely fail to make him sensitive 

To a higher, — how they thought, and what they felt.' 

" Alas, alas ! " said Marian, rocking slow 

The pretty baby who was near asleep. 

The eyelids creeping over the blue balls, — 

" She made it clear, too clear : I saw the whole. 

And yet who knows if I had seen my way 

Straight out of it by looking, though 'twas clear, 

Unless the generous lady, 'ware of this. 

Had set her own house all a-fire for me 

To light me forwards ? Leaning on my face 

Her heavy agate eyes, which crushed my will, 

She told me tenderly (as when men come 

To a bedside to tell people they must die), 

' She knew of knowledge, — ay, of knowledge knew. 

That Romney Leigh had loved her formerly. 

And she loved him^ she might say, now the chance 

Was past. But that, of course, he never guessed, 



234 AURORA LEIGH. 

For something came between them, — something thin 

As a cobweb, catching every fly of doubt 

To hold it buzzing at the window-pane, 

And help to dim the daylight. Ah, man's pride 

Or woman's, which is greatest ? most averse 

To brushing cobwebs ? Well, but she and he 

Remained fast friends : it seemed not more than so, 

Because he had bound his hands and could not stir 

An honorable man, if somewhat rash ; 

And she — not even for Romney would she spill 

A blot, as little even as a tear . . . 

Upon his marriage-contract, — not to gain 

A better joy for two than came by that ; 

For, though I stood between her heart and heaven. 

She loved me wholly.' " 

Did I laugh or curse ? 
I think I sat there silent, hearing all. 
Ay, hearing double, — Marian's tale, at once. 
And Romney's marriage-vow, " /'// keep to thee. 
Which means that woman-serpent. Is it time 
For church now ? 

" Lady Waldemar spoke more," 
Continued Marian ; " but as when a soul 
Will pass out through the sweetness of a song 
Beyond it, voyaging the uphill road, 
Even so mine wandered from the things I heard 
To those I suffered. It was afterward 
I shaped the resolution to the act. 
For many hours we talked. What need to talk ? 
The fate was clear and close ; it touched my eyes ; 
But still the generous lady tried to keep 
The case afloat, and would not let it go, 
And argued, struggled upon Marian's side, 
Which was not Romney's, though she little knew 



AURORA LEIGH. 235 



What ugly monster would take up the end,— 
What griping death within the drowning death 
Was read}/ to complete my sum of death." 

I thought, — perhaps he's sliding now the ring 
Upon that woman's finger . . . 

She went on : 
" The lady, failing to prevail her way, 
Upgathered my torn wishes from the ground, 
And pierced them with her strong benevolence ; 
And as I thought I could breath freer air 
Away from England, going without pause, 
Without farewell, just breaking with a jerk 
The blossomed offshoot from my thorny life, 
She promised kindly to provide the means. 
With instant passage to the colonies. 
And full protection, ' would commit me straight 
To one who had once been her waiting-maid 
And had the customs of the world, intent 
On changing England for Australia 
Herself, to carry out her fortune so.' 
For which I thanked the Lady Waldemar, ^ 
As men upon their deathbeds thank last friends 
Who lay the pillow straight : it is not much, 
And yet 'tis all of which they are capable, — 
This lying smoothly in a bed to die. 
And so, 'twas fixed ; and so, from day to day, 
The woman named came in to visit me. 

Just then the girl stopped speaking, sate erect. 
And stared at me as if I had been a ghost 
(Perhaps I looked r,s white as any ghost). 
With large-eyed horror. " Does God make," she said 
*' All sorts of creatures really, do you think ? 



236 AURORA LEIGH. 



Or is it that the Devil slavers them 

So excellently, that we come to doubt 

Who's stronger, — he who makes, or he who mars ? 

I never liked the woman's face, or voice. 

Or ways : it made me blush to look at her ; 

It made me. tremble if she touched my hand; 

And when she spoke a fondling word, I shrank 

As if one hated me who had power to hurt ; 

And, every time she came, my veins ran cold, 

As somebody were walking on my grave. 

At last I spoke to Lady Waldemar : 

' Could such a one be good to trust ? ' I asked. 

Whereat the lady stroked my cheek and laughed 

Her silver laugh (one must be born to laugh 

To put such music in it), ' Foolish girl. 

Your scattered wits are gathering wool beyond 

The sheep-walk reaches ! — leave the thing to me.' 

And therefore, half in trust, and half in scorn 

That I had heart still for another fear 

In such a safe despair, I left the thing. 

" The rest is short. I was obedient : 

I wrote my letter, which delivered him 

From Marian to his own prosperities. 

And followed that bad guide. The lady ? — hush, 

I never blame the lady. Ladies who 

Sit high, however willing to look down. 

Will scarce see lower than their dainty feet; 

And Lady Waldemar saw less than I, 

With what a Devil's daughter I went forth 

Along the swine's road, down the precipice. 

In such a curl of hell-foam caught and choked, 

No shriek of soul in anguish could pierce through 

To fetch some help. They say there's help in heaven 



AURORA LEIGH. 237 



For all such cries. But if one cries from hell . . . 
What then ? — the heavens are deaf upon that side. 

" A woman . . . hear me, let me make it plain . . . 
A woman . . . not a monster . . . both her breasts 
Made right to suckle babes . . . she took me off, 
A woman also, young and ignorant. 
And heavy with my grief, my two poor eyes 
Near washed away with weeping, till the trees, 
The blessed unaccustomed trees and fields 
Ran either side the train like stranger dogs 
Unworthy of any notice, — took me off 
So dull, so blind, so only half alive. 
Not seeing by what road, nor by what ship, 
Nor toward what place, nor to what end of all. 
Men carry a corpse thus, — past the doorway, past 
The garden-gate, the children's play-ground, up 
The green lane, — then they leave it in the pit, 
To sleep and lind corruption, cheek to cheek 
With him who stinks since Friday. 

" But suppose : 
To go down with one's soul into the grave. 
To go down half dead, half alive, I say. 
And wake up with corruption . . . cheek to cheek 
With him who stmks since Friday ! There it is. 
And that's the horror oft, Miss Leigh. 

" You feel ? 
You understand ? — no, do not look at me, 
But understand. The blank, bhnd, weary way 
Which led, where'er it led, away at least ; 
The shifted ship ... to Sydney, or to France, 
Still bound, wherever else, to another land ; 
The swooning sickness on the dismal sea. 
The foreign shore, the shameful house, the night, 



238 AURORA LEIGH. 

The feeble blood, the heavy-headed grief . . . 
No need to bring their damnable drugged cup, 
And yet they brought it. Hell's so prodigal 
Of Devil's gifts, hunts liberally in packs. 
Will kill no poor small creature of the wilds 
But fifty red wide throats must smoke at it. 
As HIS at me . . . when waking up at last . . . 
I told you that I waked up in the grave. 

" Enough so ! — it is plain enough so. True, 

We wretches cannot tell out all our wrong 

Without offence to decent happy folk. 

I know that we must scrupulously hint 

With half-words, delicate reserves, the thing 

Which no one scrupled we should feel in full. 

Lfet pass the rest, then ; only leave my oath 

Upon this sleeping child, — man's violence, 

Not man's seduction, made me what I am. 

As lost as ... I told him I should be lost. 

When mothers fail us, can we help ourselves ? 

That's fatal ! And you call it being lost. 

That down came next day's noon, and caught me there 

Half gibbering and half raving on the floor. 

And wondering what had happened up in heaven. 

That suns should dare to shine when God himself 

Was certainly abolished. 

" I was mad. 
How many weeks I know not, — many weeks. 
I think they let me go when I was mad : 
They feared my eyes, and loosed me, as boys might 
A mad dog which they had tortured. Up and down 
I went, by road and village, over tracts 
Of open foreign country, large and strange. 
Crossed everywhere by long, thin poplar-lines 




*' And there I sate, one evening by the road, 
1, Marian Erie." — Page 239. 



AURORA LEIGH. 239 

Like fingers of some ghastly skeleton hand 

Through sunlight and through moonlight evermore 

Pushed out from hell itself to pluck me back, 

And resolute to get me, slow and sure ; 

While every roadside Christ upon his cross 

Hung reddening through his gory wounds at me, 

And shook his nails in anger, and came down 

To follow a mile after, wading up 

The low vines and green wheat, crying, " Take the girl ! 

She's noiiC of mine from henceforth." Then I knew 

(But this is something dimmer than the rest) 

The charitable peasants gave me bread, 

And leave to sleep in straw; and twice they tied, 

At parting, Mary's image round my neck. 

How heavy it seemed ! — as heavy as a stone ; 

A woman has been strangled with less weight : 

I threw it in a ditch to keep it clean, 

And ease my breath a little, when none looked : 

I did not need such safeguards ; brutal men 

Stopped short, Miss Leigh, in insult, when they had seen 

My face, — I must have had an awful look. 

And so I lived : the weeks passed on — I lived. 

'Twas living my old tramp-life o'er again, 

But this time in a dream, and hunted round 

By some prodigious dream-fear at my back. 

Which ended yet : my brain cleared presently ; 

And there I sate, one evening, by the road, 

I, Marian Erie, myself, alone, undone, 

Facing a sunset low upon the flats 

As if it were the finish of all time. 

The great red stone upon my sepulchre, 

Which angels were too weak to roll away. 



240 AURORA LEIGH. 



SEVENTH BOOK. 

" The woman's motive ? shall we daub ourselves 

With finding roots for nettles ? 'tis soft clay, 

And easily explored. She had the means, 

The moneys, by the lady's liberal grace, 

In trust for that Australian scheme and me. 

Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands, 

And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed. 

She served me (after all it was not strange : 

'Twas only what my mother would have done) 

A motherly, right damnable good turn. 

'' Well, after. There are nettles everywhere ; 

But smooth green grasses are more common sn^\ • 

The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. 

A miller's wife at Clichy took me in. 

And spent her pity on me, — made me calm, 

And merely very reasonably sad. 

She found me a ser\^ant's place in Paris, where 

I tried to take the cast-off life again. 

And stood as quiet as a beaten ass, 

Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up 

To let them charge him with another pack. 

" A few months so. My mistress, young and light. 

Was easy with me, less for kindness than 

Because she led, herself, an easy tim.e 

Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass. 

Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most. 

She felt so pretty and so pleased all day. 

She could not take the trouble to be cross. 

But sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe. 



AURORA LEIGH. 24 



Would tap me softly with her slender foot, 
Still restless with the last night's dancing in't, 
And say, ' Fie, pale-face ! Are you English girls 
All ^rrave and silent ? mass-book still, and Lent ? 
And first-communion pallor on your cheeks. 
Worn past the time for't ? Little fool, be gay ! ' 
At which she vanished, like a fairy, through 
A gap of silver laughter. 

" Came an hour 
When all went otherwise. She did not speak. 
But clinched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes 
As if a viper with a pair of tongs, 
Too far for any touch, yet near enough 
To view the writhing creature, — then at last, 
' Stand still there, in the holy Virgin's name, 
Thou Marian : thou'rt no reputable girl, 
Although sufficient dull for twenty saints ! 
I think thou mock'st me and my house,' she said ; 
' Confess thou'lt be a mother in a month, 
Thou mask of saintship.' 

" Could I answer her ? 
The light broke in so. It meant that, then thafi 
I had not thought of that, in all my thoughts. 
Through all the cold numb aching of my brow. 
Through all the heaving of impatient life 
W1-iich threw me on death at intervals : through all 
The upbreak of the fountains of my heart 
The rains had swelled too large. It could mean that^ 
Did God make mothers out of victims, then. 
And set such pure amens to hideous deeds ? 
Why not ? He overblows an ugly grave 
With violets which blossom in the spring. 
And / could be a mother in a month ? 
I hope it was not wicked to be glad. 



24.2 AURORA LEIGH. 



I lifted up my voice and wept, and laughed — 
To heaven, not her — until it tore my throat. 
' Confess, confess ! ' What was there to confess, 
Except man's cruelty, except my wrong ? 
Except this anguish, or this ecstasy ? 
This shame or glory ? The light woman there 
Was small to take it in : an acorn-cup 
Would take the sea in sooner. 

" * Good ! ' she cried : 
' Unmarried and a mother, and she laughs ! 
These unchaste girls are always impudent. 
Get out, intriguer ! Leave my house and trot ! 
I wonder you should look me in the face. 

With such a filthy secret.' 

" Then I rolled 

My scanty bundle up, and went my way. 

Washed white with weeping, shuddering head and foot. 

With blind, hysteric passion, staggering forth 

Beyond those doors. 'Twas natural, of course. 

She should not ask me where I meant to sleep ! 

I might sleep well beneath the heavy Seine, 

Like others of my sort : the bed was laid 

For us. But any woman, womanly. 

Had thought of him who should be in a month, 

The sinless babe that should be in a month. 

And if by chance he might be warmer housed 

Than underneath such dreary dripping eaves." 

I broke on Marian there. " Yet she herself 
A wife, I think, had scandals of her own, 
A lover not her husband." 

" Ay," she said ; 
" But gold and meal are measured otherwise : 
I learnt so much at school," said Marian Earle. 



AURORA LEIGH. 243 



"O crooked world," I cried, "ridiculous, 
If not so lamentable ! 'Tis the way 
With these light women of a thrifty vice, 
My Marian, — always hard upon the rent 
In any sister's virtue ! while they keep 
Their own so darned and patched with perfidy, 
That, though a rag itself, it looks as well 
Across a street, in balcony or coach, 
As any perfect stuff might. For my part, 
I'd rather take the wind-side of the stews 
Than touch such women with my finger-end ! 
They top the poor street-walker by their lie. 
And look the better for being so much worse : 
The Devil's most devilish when respectable. 
But you, dear, and your story." 

" All the rest 
Is here," she said, and signed upon the child. 
" I found a mistress-seamstress who was kind, 
And let me sew in peace among her girls. 
And what w^as better than to draw the threads 
All day and half the night for him and him ? 
And so I lived for him, and so he lives ; 
And so I know, by this time, God lives too." 

She smiled beyond the sun, and ended so, 
And all my soul rose up to take her part 
Against the world's successes, virtues, fames. 
" Come with me, sweetest sister," I returned, 
" And sit within my house and do me good 
From henceforth, thou and thine ! ye are my own 
From henceforth. I am lonely in the world. 
And thou art lonely, and the child is half 
An orphan. Come ; and henceforth thou and I, 
Being still together, will not miss a friend, 



244 AURORA LEIGH. 



Nor he a father, since two mothers shall 
Make that up to him. I am journeying south, 
And in my Tuscan home I'll find a niche 
And set thee there, my saint, the child and thee. 
And burn the lights of love before thy face, 
And ever at thy sweet look cross myself 
From mixing with the world's prosperities ; 
That so, in gravity and holy calm, 
We two may live on toward the truer life." 

She looked me in the face and answered not. 

Nor signed she was unworthy, nor gave thanks. 

But took the sleeping child, and held it out 

To meet my kiss, as if requiting me 

And trusting me at once. And thus, at once, 

I carried him and her to wdiere I live : 

She's there now, in the little room, asleep, 

I hear the soft child-breathing through the door : 

And all three of us, at to-morrow's break. 

Pass onward, homeward, to our Italy. 

Romney Leigh ! I have your debts to pay. 
And I'll be just and pay them. 

But yourself ! 
To pay your debts is scarcely difficult ; 
To buy your life is nearly impossible. 
Being sold away to Lamia. My head aches ; 

1 cannot see my road along this dark ; 

Nor can I creep and grope, as fits the dark, 

For these foot-catching robes of womanhood : 

A man might walk a little . . . But I ! — he loves 

The Lamia-woman, — and I write to him 

What stops his marriage, and destroys his peace, 

Or what perhaps shall simply trouble him. 

Until she only need to touch his sleeve 



AURORA LEIGH. 245 



With just a finger's tremulous white flame, 
Saying, " Ah, Aurora Leigh ! a pretty tale, 
A very pretty poet ! \ can guess 
The motive," — then, to catch his eyes in hers 
And vow she does not wonder, and they two 
To break in laughter, as the sea along 
A melancholy coast, and float up higher, 
In such a laugh, their fatal weeds of love ! 
Ay, fatal, ay. And who shall answer me 
Fate has not hurried tides, and if to-night 
My letter would not be a night too late. 
An arrow shot into a man that's dead. 
To prove a vain intention ? Would I show 

The new wife vile to make the husband mad ? 

No, Lamia ! shut the shutters, bar the doors 

From every glimmer on thy serpent-skin : 

I will not let thy hideous secret out 

To agonize the man I love — I mean 

The friend I love ... as friends love. 

It is strange 

To-day, while Marian told her story like 

To absorb most listeners, how I listened chief 

To a voice not hers, nor yet that enemy's, 

Nor God's in wrath . . . but one that mixed with mine 

Long years ago among the garden-trees, 

And said to me, to 7ne, too, " Be my wife, 

Aurora." It is strange with what a swell 

Of yearning passion, as a snow of ghosts 

Might beat against the impervious door of heaven, 

I thought, " Now, if I had been a woman, such 

As God made women, to save men by love. 

By just my love I might have saved this man, 

And made a nobler poem for the world 

Than all I have failed in." But I failed besides 



246 AURORA LEIGH. 



In this ; and now he's lost — through me alone ! 

And, by my only fault, his empty house 

Sucks in at this same hour a wind from hell 

To keejD his hearth cold, make his casements creak 

Forever to the tune of plague and sin — 

O Romney, O my Romne}^ O my friend ! 

My cousin and friend ! my helper, when I would ! 

My love, that might be ! mine ! 

Why, how one weeps 
When one's too weary ! Were a witness by, 
He'd say some folly . . . that I loved the man, 
Who knows ? . . . and make me laugh again for scorn. 
At strongest, women are as weak in flesh, 
As men, at weakest, vilest, are in soul : 
So hard for women to keep pace with men ! 
As well give up at once, sit down at once. 
And weep as I do. Tears, tears ! why we weep ? 
'Tis worth inquiry ? — That we've shamed a life. 
Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps ? 
By no means. Simply that we've walked too far. 
Or talked too much, or felt the wind i' the east ; 
And so we weep, as if both body and soul 
Broke up in water — this way. 

Poor mixed rags, 
Forsooth, we're made of, like those other dolls 
That lean with pretty faces into fairs. 
It seems as if I had a man in me, 
Despising such a woman. 

Yet, indeed. 
To see a wrong or suffering moves us all 
To undo it, though we should undo ourselves ; 
Ay, all the more that we undo ourselves : 
That's womanly, past doubt, and not ill-moved. 
A natural movement, therefore, on my part, 



AURORA LEIGH. 247 



To fill the chair up of my cousin's wife, 

And save him from a Devil's company ! 

We're all so, — made so: 'tis our woman's trade 

To suffer torment for another's ease. 

The world's male chivalry has perished out ; 

But women are knights-errant to the last ; 

And if Cervantes had been Shakspeare too, 

He had made his Don a Donna. 

So it clears, 
And so we rain our skies blue. 

Put away 
This weakness. If, as I have just now said, 
A man's within me, let him act himself. 
Ignoring the poor conscious trouble of blood 
That's called the woman merely. I will write 
Plain words to England, — if too late, too late ; 
If ill-accounted, then accounted ill : 
We'll trust the heavens with somethins:. 

" Dear Lord Howe, 
You'll find a story on another leaf 
Of Marian Erie, — what noble friend of yours 
She trusted once, through what flagitious means. 
To what disastrous ends : the story's true. 
I found her wandering on the Paris quays, 
A babe upon her breast, — unnatural. 
Unseasonable outcast on such snow, 
Unthawed to this time. I will tax in this 
Your friendship, friend, if that convicted she 
Be not his wife yet, to denounce the facts 
To himself, but otherwise to let them pass 
On tiptoe like escaping murderers. 
And tell my cousin merely — Marian lives, 
Is found, and finds her home with such a friend. 
Myself, Aurora. Which good news, 'She's found,' 



248 AURORA LEIGH. 



Will help to make him merry in his love : 

I send it, tell him, for my marriage gift, 

As good as orange-water for the nerves, 

Or perfumed gloves for headache, — though aware 

That he, except of love, is scarcely sick : 

I mean the new love this time . . . since last year. 

Such quick forgetting on the part of men ! 

Is any shrewder trick upon the cards 

To enrich them ? Pray instruct me how 'tis done. 

First, clubs ; and, while you look at clubs, 'tis spades ; 

That's prodigy. The lightning strikes a man, 

And, when we think to find him dead and charred . . 

Why, there he is on a sudden playing pipes 

Beneath the splintered elm-tree ! Crime and shame. 

And all their hoggery, trample your smooth world, 

Nor leave more footmarks than Apollo's kine. 

Whose hoofs were muffled by the thieving god 

In tamarisk-leaves and myrtle. I'm so sad. 

So weary and sad to-night, I'm somewhat sour, — 

Foro-ive me. To be blue and shrew at once 

Exceeds all toleration except yours ; 

But yours, I know, is infinite. Farewell ! 

To-morrow we take train for Italy. 

Speak gently of me to your gracious wife, 

As one, however far, shall yet be near 

In loving wishes to your house." 

I sign. 
And now I loose my heart upon a page. 
This — 

"Lady Waldemar, I'm very glad 
I never liked you ; which you knew so well 
You spared me, in your turn, to like me much. 
Your liking surely had done worse for me 
Than has your loathing, though the last appears 



AURORA LEIGH. 249 

Sufficiently unscrupulous to hurt, 

And not afraid of judgment. Now there's space 

Between our faces, I stand off, as if 

I judged a stranger's portrait, and pronounced 

Indifferently the type was good or bad. 

What matter to me the lines are false ? 

I ask you. Did I ever ink my lips 

By drawing your name through them as a friend's ? 

Or touch your hands as lovers do ? Thank God, 

I never did ! And since you're proved so vile. 

Ay, vile, I say, — we'll show it presently, — 

I'm not obliged to nurse my friend in you, 

Or wash out my own blots in counting yours. 

Or even excuse myself to honest souls 

Who seek to press my lip, or clasp my palm, — 

' Alas, but Lady Waldemar came first ! ' 

'Tis true, by this time you may near me so 

That you're my cousin's wife. You've gambled deep 

As Lucifer, and won the morning-star 

In that case ; and the noble house of Leigh 

Must henceforth with its good roof shelter you. 

I cannot speak and burn you up between 

Those rafters, I who am born a Leigh; nor speak 

And pierce your breast through Romney's, I who live 

His friend and cousin : so you're safe. You two 

Must grow together like the tares and wheat 

Till God's great fire. But make the best of time. 

" And hide this letter : let it speak no more 
Than I shall, how you tricked poor Marian Erie, 
And set her own love digging its own grave 
Within her green hope's pretty garden-ground, — 
Ay, sent her forth with some one of your sort 
To a wicked house in France, from which she fled 



250 AURORA LEIGH. 

With curses in her eyes and ears and throat, 
Her whole soul choked with curses, mad, in short, 
And madly scouring up and down for weeks 
The foreign hedgeless country, lone and lost, — 
So innocent, male fiends might slink within 
Remote hell-corners seeing her so defiled. 

" But you, — you are a woman, and more bold. 

To do you justice, you'd not shrink to face ... 

We'll say, the unfledged life in the other room. 

Which, treading down God's corn, you trod in sight 

Of all the dogs in reach of all the guns, — 

Ay, Marian's babe, her poor unfathered child. 

Her yearling babe ! — you'd face him when he wakes 

And opens up his wonderful blue eyes ; 

You'd meet them, and not wink perhaps, nor fear 

God's triumph in them and. supreme revenge 

When righting his creation's balance scale 

(You pulled as low as Tophet) to the top 

Of most celestial innocence. For me. 

Who am not as bold, I own those infant eyes 

Have set me praying. 

" While they look at heaven, 
No need of protestation in my words 
Against the place you've made them ! let them look. 
They'll do your business with the heavens, be sure : 
I spare you common curses. 

'' Ponder this ; 
If haply you're the wife of Romney Leigh, 
(For which inheritance beyond your birth 
You sold that poisonous porridge called your soul) 
I charge you be his faithful and true wife ! 
Keep warm his hearth, and clean his board, and, when 
He speaks, be quick with your obedience ; 



AURORA LEIGH. 251 



Still grind your paltry wants and low desires 

To dust beneath his heel, though, even thus. 

The ground must hurt him : it was writ of old, 

' Ye shall not yoke together ox and ass,' 

The nobler and ignobler. Ay ; but you 

Shall do your part as well as such ill things 

Can do aught good. You shall not vex him, — mark, 

You shall not vex him, jar him when he's sad, 

Or cross him when he's eager. Understand, 

To trick him with apparent sympathies. 

Nor let him see thee in the face too near. 

And unlearn thy sweet seeming. Pay the price 

Of lies by being constrained to lie on still : 

'Tis easy for thy sort : a million more 

Will scarcely damn thee deeper. 

" Doing which 
You are very safe from Marian and myself : 
We'll breathe as softly as the infant here, 
And stir no dangerous embers. Fail a point, 
And show our Romney wounded, ill content, 
Tormented in his home, we open mouth. 
And such a noise will follow, the last trump's 
Will scarcely seem more dreadful, even to you ; 
You'll have no pipers after : Romney will 
(I know him) push you forth as none of his, 
All other men declaring it well done ; 
While women, even the worst, your like, will draw 
Their skirts back, not to brush you in the street : 
And so I warn you. I'm . . . Aurora Leigh." 

The letter written, I felt satisfied. 
The ashes smouldering in me were thrown out 
By handfuls from me : I had writ my heart, 
And wept my tears, and now was cool and calm ; 



252 AURORA LEIGH. 

And, going straightway to the neighboring room 

I lifted up the curtains of the bed 

Where Marian Erie — the babe upon her arm 

Both faces leaned together like a pair 

Of folded innocents self-complete, • 

Each smiling from the other — smiled and slept. 

There seemed no sin, no shame, no wrath, no grief. 

I felt she, too, had spoken words that night. 

But softer certainly, and said to God, 

Who laughs in heaven perhaps that such as I 

Should make ado for such as she. " Defiled " 

I wrote ? " defiled " I thought her ? Stoop, 

Stoop lower, Aurora ! get the angels' leave 

To creep in somewhere, humbly on your knees, 

Within this round of sequestration white 

In which they have wrapt earth's foundlings, heaven's elect 

The next day we took train to Italy, 

And fled on southward in the roar of steam. 

The marriage-bells of Romney must be loud 

To sound so clear through all. I was not well, 

And truly, though the truth is like a jest, 

I could not choose but fancy, half the way, 

I stood alone i' the belfry, fifty bells, 

Of naked iron, mad with merriment 

(As one who laughs and cannot stop himself), 

All clanking at me, in me, over me. 

Until I shrieked a shriek I could not hear. 

And swooned with noise, but still, along my swoon, 

Was 'ware the baffled changes backward rang. 

Prepared at each emerging sense to beat 

And crash it out with clangor. I was weak ; 

I struggled for the posture of my soul 

In upright consciousness of place and time, 



AURORA LEIGH. 253 

But evermore, 'twixt waking and asleep, 

Slipped somehow, staggered, caught at Marian's eyes 

A moment (it is very good for strength 

To know that some one needs you to be strong), 

And so recovered what I call myself, 

For that time. 

I just knew it when we swept 
Above the old roofs of Dijon. Lyons dropped 
A spark into the night, half trodden out. 
Unseen. But presently the winding Rhone 
Washed out the moonlight large along his banks 
Which strained their yielding curves out clear and clean 
To hold it, — shadow of town and castle blurred 
Upon the hurrying river. Such an air 
Blew thence upon the forehead, — half an air 
And half a water — that I leaned and looked. 
Then, turning back to Marian, smiled to mark 
That she looked only on her child, who slept. 
His face toward the moon, too. 

So we passed 
The liberal open country and the close. 
And shot through tunnels, like a lightning-wedge 
By great Thor-hammers driven through the rock. 
Which, quivering through the intestine blackness, splits. 
And lets it in at once : the train swept in 
Athrob with effort, trembling with resolve. 
The fierce denouncing whistle wailing on. 
And dying off, smothered in the shuddering dark ; 
While we self-awed, drew troubled breath, oppressed 
As other Titans, underneath the pile 
And nightmare of the mountains. Out, at last, 
To catch the dawn afloat upon the land. 
— Hills, slung forth broadly and gauntly everywiiere, 
Not crampt in their foundations, pushing wide 



254 AURORA LEIGH. 



Rich outspreads of the vineyards and the corn 
(As if they entertained i' the name of France), 
While down their straining sides streamed manifest 
A soil as red as Charlemagne's nightly blood, 
To consecrate the verdure. Some one said, 
" Marseilles ! " And lo, the city of Marseilles, 
With all her ships behind her, and beyond. 
The cimiter of ever-shining sea 
For right-hand use, bared blue against the sky ! 

That night we spent between the purple heaven 
And purple water. I think Marian slept ; 
But I, as a dog a-watch for his master's foot, 
Who cannot; sleep or eat before he hears, 
I sate upon the deck, and watched the night, 
And listened through the stars for Italy. 
Those marriage-bells I spoke of sounded far, 
As some child's go-cart in the street beneath 
To a dying man who will not pass the da)^. 
And knows it, holding by a hand he loves. 
I, too, sate quiet, satisfied with death. 
Sate silent. I could hear my own soul speak. 
And had my friend ; for Nature comes sometimes, 
And says, " I am ambassador for God." 
I felt the wind soft from the land of souls ; 
The old miraculous mountains heaved in sight, 
One straining past another along the shore, 
The way of grand dull Odyssean ghosts 
Athirst to drink the cool blue wine of seas. 
And stare on voyagers. Peak pushing peak. 
They stood. I watched, beyond that Tyrian belt 
Of intense sea betwixt them and the ship, 
Down all their sides the misty olive-woods 
Dissolving in the weak cono^enial moon. 



AURORA LEIGH. 255 



And still disclosing some brown convent-tower, 

That seems as if it grew from some brown rock, 

Or many a little lighted village, dropt 

Like a fallen star upon so high a point 

You w^onder what can keep it in its place 

From sliding headlong with the waterfalls 

Which powder all the myrtle and orange groves 

With spray of silver. Thus my Italy 

Was stealing on us. Genoa broke with day ; 

The Doria's long pale palace striking out, 

From green hills in advance of the white town, 

A marble finger dominant to ships, 

Seen glimmering through the uncertain gray of dawn. 

And then I did not think, " My Italy ! " 

I thought, " My father ! " Oh, my father's house, 

Without his presence ! Places are too much. 

Or else too little, for immortal man, — 

Too little, when love's May o'ergrows the ground 

Too much, when that luxuriant robe of green 

Is rustling to our ankles in dead leaves. 

'Tis only good to be or here or there. 

Because we had a dream on such a stone, 

Or this or that ; but once being wholly waked. 

And come back to the stone without the dream, 

We trip upon't, alas ! and hurt ourselves ; 

Or else it falls on us, and grinds us flat, — 

The heaviest gravestone on this burying earth. 

— But, while I stood and mused, a quiet touch 

Fell light upon my arm, and, turning round, 

A pair of moistened eyes convicted mine. 

"What, Marian ! is the babe astir so soon .? " 

" He sleeps," she answered. " I have crept up thrice, 

And seen you sitting, standing, still at watch. 



256 AURORA LEIGH. 

I thought it did you good till now ; but now "... 

" But now," I said, "you leave the child alone." 

"And you're alone," she answered; and she looked 

As if I, too, were something. Sweet the help 

Of one we have helped ! Thanks, Marian, for such help. 

I found a house at Florence on the hill 

Of Bellosguardo. 'Tis a tower which keeps 

A post of double observation o'er 

That valley of Arno (holding as a hand 

The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole 

And Mount Morello and the setting sun, 

The Vallombrosan mountains opposite, 

Which sunrise fills as full as crystal cups 

Turned red to the brim because their wine is red. 

No sun could die, nor yet be born, unseen 

By dwellers at my villa. Morn and eve 

Were magnified before us in the pure 

Illimitable space and pause of sky, 

Intense as angels' garments blanched with God, 

Less blue than radiant. From the outer wall 

Of the garden drops the mystic floating gray 

Of olive-trees (with interruptions green 

From maize and vine), until 'tis caught and torn 

Upon the abrupt black line of cypresses 

Which signs the way to Florence. Beautiful 

The city lies along the ample vale. 

Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and street, 

The river trailing like a silver cord 

Through all, and curling loosely, both before 

And after, over the whole stretch of land 

Sown whitely up and down its opposite slopes 

With farms and villas. 

Many weeks had passed, 



AURORA LEIGH. 257 

No word was granted. Last, a letter came 

From Vincent Carrington, — " My dear Miss Leigh, 

You've been as silent as a poet should, 

When any other man is sure to speak. 

If sick, if vexed, if dumb, a silver piece 

Will split a man's tongue, — straight he speaks, and says, 

^Received that check,' But you ... I send you funds 

To Paris, and you make no sign at all. 

Remember, I'm responsible, and wait 

A sign of you. Miss Leigh. 

" Meantime your book 
Is eloquent as if you were not dumb ; 
And common critics, ordinarily deaf 
To such fine meanings, and, like deaf men, loath 
To seem deaf, answering chance-wise, yes or no, 
' It must be,' or ' It must not ' (most pronounced 
When least convinced), pronounce for once aright; 
You'd think they really heard, — and so they do . . . 
The burr of three or four who really hear 
And praise your book aright : fame's smallest trump 
Is a great ear-trumpet for the deaf as posts, 
No other being effective. Fear not, friend : 
We think here you have written a good book, 
And you, a woman ! It was in you — yes, 
I felt 'twas in you ; yet I doubted half 
If that od-force of German Reichenbach, 
Which still from female finger-tips burns blue, 
Could strike out as our masculine white-heats 
To quicken a man. Forgive me. All my heart 
Is quick with yours since, just a fortnight since, 
I read your book and loved it. 

*' Will you love 
My wife, too ? Here's my secret I might keep 
A month more from you ; but I yield it up 



258 AURORA LEIGH. 

Because I know you'll write the sooner for't 
Most women (of your height even) counting love 
Life's only serious business. Who's my wife 
That shall be in a month ? you ask ? nor guess ? 
Remember what a pair of topaz eyes ' 
You once detected, turned against the wall, 
That morning in my London painting-room ; 
The face half-sketched, and slurred ; the eyes alone ! 
But you , . . you caught them up with yours, and said, 
' Kate Ward's eyes surely.' — Now I own the truth : 
I had thrown them there to keep them safe from Jove, 
They would so naughtily find out their way 
To both the heads of both my Danaes, 
Where just it made me mad to look at them. 
Such eyes ! I could not paint or think of eyes 
But those, — and so I flung them into paint. 
And turned them to the wall's care. Ay, but now 
I've let them out, my Kate's. I've painted her 
(I change my style, and leave mythologies). 
The whole sweet face : it looks upon my soul 
Like a face on water, to beget itself. 
• A half-length portrait, in a hanging cloak 
Like one you wore once ; 'tis a little frayed, — ' 
I pressed too for the nude, harmonious arm ; 
But she, she'd have her way, and have her cloak ; 
She said she could be like you only so, 
And would not miss the fortune. Ah, my friend. 
You'll write and say she shall not miss your love 
Through meeting mine ? in faith, she would not change. 
She has your books by heart more than my words. 
And quotes you up against me till I'm pushed 
Where, three months since, her eyes were : nay, in fact. 
Naught satisfied her but to make me paint 
Your last book folded in her dimpled hands, 



AURORA LEIGH. 259 

Instead of my brown palette, as I wished, 
And, grant me, the presentment had been newer : 
She'd grant me nothing. I compounded for 
The naming of the wedding-day next month, 
And gladly too. 'Tis pretty to remark 
How women can love women of your sort, 
And tie their hearts with love-knots to your feet, 
Grow insolent about you against men. 
And put us down by putting up the lip. 
As if a man — there are such, let us own. 
Who write not ill — remains a man, poor wretch, 
While you ! — Write weaker than Aurora Leigh, 
And there'll be women who believe of you 
(Besides my Kate) that if you walked on sand 
You would not leave a footprint. 

" Are you put 
To wonder by my marriage, Hke poor Leigh ? 
' Kate Ward ! ' he said. ' Kate Ward ! ' he said anew. 
' I thought ' ... he said, and stopped, — I did not think ' . . . 
And then he dropped to silence. 

" Ah, he's changed. 
I had not seen him, you're aware, for long, 
But went, of course. I have not touched on this 
Through all this letter, conscious of your heart, 
And writing lightlier for the heavy fact, 
As clocks are voluble with lead. 

" How poor 
To say I'm sorry ! dear Leigh, dearest Leigh ! 
In those old days of Shropshire, — pardon me, — 
When he and you fought many a field of gold 
On what you should do, or you should not do, — 
Make bread, or verses (it just came to that), 
I thought you'd one day draw a silken peace 



26o AURORA LEIGH. 

Through a golden ring. I thought so : foolishly, 

The event proved ; for you went more opposite 

To each other, month by month, and year by year, 

Until this happened. God knows best, we say, 

But hoarsely. When the fever took him first. 

Just after I had writ to you in France, 

They tell me Lady Waldemar mixed drinks, 

And counted grains, like any salaried nurse, 

Excepting that she wept too. Then Lord Howe, 

You're right about Lord Howe, Lord Howe's a trump 

And yet, with such in his hand, a man like Leigh 

May lose as ke does. There's an end to all, 

Yes, even this letter, though this second sheet 

May find you doubtful. Write a word for Kate : 

She reads my letters always, like a wife, 

And if she sees her name I'll see her smile 

And share the luck. So, bless you, friend of two I 

I will not ask you what your feeling is 

At Florence with my pictures. I can hear 

Your heart a-flutter over the snow-hills ; 

And just to pace the Pitti with you once, 

I'd give a half -hour of to-morrow's walk 

With Kate ... I think so. Vincent Carrington." 

The noon was hot : the air scorched like the sun, 
And was shut out. The closed persiani threw 
Their long-scored shadows on my villa-floor. 
And interlined the golden atmosphere 
Straight, still, — across the pictures on the wall. 
The statuette on the console (of young Love 
And Psyche made one marble by a kiss), 
The low couch where I leaned, the table near. 
The vase of lilies Marian pulled last night 
(Each green leaf and each white leaf ruled in black 



AURORA LEIGH. 261 

As if for writing some new text of fate), 

And the open letter rested on my knee ; 

But there the lines swerved, trembled, though I sate 

Untroubled, plainly, reading it again 

And three times. Well, he's married : that is clear. 

No wonder that he's married, nor, much more, 

That Vincent's therefore " sorry." Why, of course 

The lady nursed him when he was not well, 

Mixed drinks — unless nepenthe was the drink 

'Twas scarce worth telling. But a man in love 

Will see the whole sex in his mistress' hood, 

The prettier for its lining of fair rose, 

Although he catches back and says at last, 

" I'm sorry." Sorr}^ Lady Waldemar 

At prettiest, under the said hood, preserved 

From such a light as I could hold to her face 

To flare its ugly wrinkles out to shame. 

Is scarce a wife for Romney, as friends judge, — 

Aurora Leigh, or Vincent Carrington : 

That's plain. And if he's "conscious of my heart" . . . 

It may be natural, though the phrase is strong ; 

(One's apt to use strong phrases, being in love) 

And even that stuff of "fields of gold," "gold rings," 

And what he " thought," poor Vincent ! what he "thought," 

May never mean enough to ruffle me. 

— Why, this room stifles. Better burn than choke : 

Best have air, air, although it comes with fire ; 

Throw open the blinds and windows to the noon. 

And take a blister on my brow instead 

Of this dead weight ! best perfectly be stunned 

By those insufferable cicale, sick 

And hoarse with rapture of the summer heat. 

That sing, like poets, till their hearts break, — sing 

Till men say, " It's too tedious." 



262 



AURORA LEIGH. 



Books succeed, 
And lives fail. Do I feel it so at last ? 
Kate loves a worn-out cloak for being like mine, 
While' I live self-despised for being myself, 
And yearn toward some one else, who yearns away 
From what he is, in his turn. Strain a step 
Forever, yet gain no step ? Are we such 
We cannot, with our admirations even, 
Our tiptoe aspirations, touch a thing 
That's higher than we .? Is all a dismal flat, 
And God alone above each, — as the sun 
O'er level lagunes, to make them shine and stink, — 
Laying stress upon us with immediate flame. 
While we respond with our miasmal fog. 
And call it mounting higher because we grow 
More highly fatal .? 

Tush, Aurora Leigh ! 
You wear your sackcloth looped in Caesar's way, 
And brag your failings as mankind's. Be still. 
There is what's higher, in this very world. 
Than you can live, or catch at. Stand aside 
And look at others, — instance little Kate. 
She'll make a perfect wife for Carrington. 
She always has been looking round the earth 
For something good and green to alight upon 
And nestle into, with those soft-winged eyes. 
Subsiding now beneath his manly hand, 
'Twixt trembling lids of inexpressive joy. 
I will not scorn her, after all, too much. 
That so much she should love me. A wise man 
Can pluck a leaf, and find a lecture in't ; 
And I too . . . God has made" me, — I've a heart 
That's capable of worship, love, and loss : 



AURORA LEIGH. 263 



We say the same of Shakspeare's. I'll be meek 
And learn to reverence, even this poor myself. 
The book, too — pass it. "A good book," says he, 
" And you a woman." I had laughed at that 
But long since. I'm a woman, it is true ; 
Alas, and woe to us, when we feel it most ! 
Then least care have we for the crowns and goals 
And compliments on writing our good books. 

The book has some truth in it, I believe ; 

And truth outlives pain, as the soul does life. 

I know we talk our Phaedons to the end. 

Through all the dismal faces that we make, 

O'er-wrinkled with dishonoring agony 

From decomposing drugs. I have written truth. 

And I a woman, — feebly, partially. 

Inaptly in presentation, Romney '11 add, 

Because a woman. For the truth itself. 

That's neither man's nor woman's, but just God's; 

None else has reason to be proud of truth : 

Himself will see it sifted, disinthralled. 

And kept upon the height and in the light. 

As far as and no farther than 'tis truth ; 

For now he has left of¥ calling firmaments 

And strata, flowers and creatures, very good, 

He says it still of truth, which is his own. 

Truth, so far, in my book, — the truth which draws 

Through all things upwards, — that a twofold world 

Must go to a perfect cosmos. Natural things 

And spiritual, — who separates those two 

In art, in morals, or the social drift. 

Tears up the bond of nature, and brings death. 

Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse. 



264 AURORA LEIGH. 

Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men, 

Is wrong, in short, at all points. We divide 

This apple of life, and cut it through the pips : 

The perfect round which fitted Venus' hand 

Has perished as utterly as if we ate 

Both halves. Without the spiritual, observe, 

The natural's impossible, no form. 

No motion : without sensuous, spiritual 

Is inappreciable, no beauty or power. 

And in this twofold sphere the twofold man 

(For still the artist is intensely a man) 

Holds firmly by the natural to reach 

The spiritual beyond it, fixes still 

The type with mortal vision to pierce through, 

With eyes immortal to the antetype 

Some call the ideal, better called the real, 

And certain to be called so presently. 

When things shall have their names. Look long enough 

On any peasant's face here, coarse and lined, 

You'll catch Antinous somewhere in that clay, 

As perfect-featured as he yearns at Rome 

From marble pale with beauty ; then persist. 

And if your apprehension's competent. 

You'll find some fairer angel at his back, 

As much exceeding him as he the boor. 

And pushing him with empyreal disdain 

Forever out of sight. Ay, Carrington 

Is glad of such a creed : an artist must, 

Who paints a tree, a leaf, a common stone 

With just his hand, and finds it suddenly 

Apiece with and conterminous to his soul. 

Why else do these things move him, — leaf, or stone ? 

The bird's not moved, that pecks at a spring-shoot. 

Nor yet the horse before a quarry agraze : 



AURORA LEIGH. 26[ 

But man, the twofold creature, apprehends 

The twofold manner, in and outwardly, 

And nothing in the world comes single to him, 

A mere itself, — cup, column, or candlestick, 

All patterns of what shall be in the Mount ; 

The whole temporal show related royally. 

And built up to eterne significance 

Through the open arms of God. "There's notliing great 

Nor small," has said a poet of our day, 

Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve, 

And not be thrown out by the matin's bell : 

And truly, I reiterate. Nothing's small 1 

No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee. 

But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ! 

No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere ; 

No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim ; 

And (glancing on my own thin, veine'd wrist) 

In such a little tremor of the blood 

The whole strong clamor of a vehement soul 

Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven. 

And every common bush afire with God ; 

But only he who sees takes off his shoes. 

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, 

And daub their natural faces unaware 

More and more from the first similitude. 

Truth, so far, in my book ! — a truth which draws 
From all things upward. I, Aurora, still 
Have felt it hound me through the wastes of life 
As Jove did lo ; and until that hand 
Shall overtake me wholly, and on my head 
Lay down its large unfluctuating peace, 
The feverish gad-fly pricks me up and down. 
It must be. Art's the witness of what is 



266 AURORA LEIGH. 

Behind this show. If this world's show were all, • 

Then imitation would be all in art. 

There Jove's hand gripes us ! for we stand here, we, 

If genuine artists, witnessing for God's 

Complete, consummate, undivided work; 

— That every natural flower which grows on earth 

Implies a flower upon the spiritual side. 

Substantial, archetypal, all aglow 

With blossoming causes, — not so far away. 

But we whose spirit-sense is somewhat cleared 

May catch at something of the bloom and breath, — 

Too vaguely apprehended, though, indeed. 

Still apprehended, consciously or not. 

And still transferred to picture, music, verse, 

For thrilling audient and beholding souls 

By signs and touches which are known to souls. 

How known, they know not ; why, they cannot find : 

So straight call out on genius, say, " A man 

Produced this," when much rather they should say, 

*' 'Tis insight, and he saw this." 

Thus is art 
Self-magnified in magnifying a truth 
Which, fully recognized, would change the world, 
And shift its morals. If a man could feel, 
Not one day, in the artist's ecstasy, 
But every day, — feast, fast, or working day, — 
The spiritual significance burn through 
The hieroglyphic of material shows. 
Henceforward he would paint the globe with wings, 
And reverence fish and fowl, the bull, the tree. 
And even his very body as a man ; 
Which now he counts so vile, that all the towns 
Make offal of their daughters for its use 
On summer-nights, when God is sad in heaven 



AURORA LEIGH. 267 



To think what goes on in his recreant world 
He made quite other ; while that moon he made 
To shine there, at the first love's covenant, 
Shines still, convictive as a marriage-ring 
Before adulterous eyes. 

How sure it is, 
That, if we say a true word, instantly 
We feel 'tis God's, not ours, and pass it on, 
Like bread at sacrament we taste and pass 
Nor handle for a moment, as indeed 
We dared to set up any claim to such ! 
And I — my poem — let my readers talk. 
I'm closer to it, I can speak as well : 
I'll say, with Romney, that the book is weak, 
The range uneven, the points of sight obscure, 
The music interrupted. 

Let us go. 
The end of woman (or of man, I think) 
Is not a book. Alas, the best of books 
Is but a word in art, which soon grows cramped. 
Stiff, dubious-statured, with the weight of years, 
And drops an accent or digamma down 
Some cranny of unfathomable time. 
Beyond the critic's reaching. Art itself. 
We've called the larger life, must feel the soul 
Live past it. For more's felt than is perceived, 
And more's perceived than can be interpreted, 
And love strikes higher with his lambent flame 
Than art can pile the fagots. 

Is it so ? 
When Jove's hand meets us with composing touch, 
And when at last we are hushed and satisfied. 
Then lo does not call it truth, but love ? 
Well, well ! my father was an Englishman : 



268 AURORA LEIGH. 

My mother's blood in ine is not so strong 

That I should bear this stress of Tuscan noon, 

And keep my wits. The town there seems to seethe 

In this Medsean boil-pot of the sun, 

And all the patient hills are bubbling round 

As if a prick would leave them flat. Does heaven 

Keep far off, not to set us in a blaze t 

Not so; let drag your fiery fringes, heaven, 

And burn us up to quiet. Ah ! we know 

Too much here not to know what's best for peace ; 

We have too much light here, not to want more fire 

To purify and end us. We talk, talk. 

Conclude upon divine philosophies, 

And get the thanks of men for hopeful books ; 

Whereat we take our own life up, and . . . pshaw 

Unless we piece it with another's life 

(A yard of silk to carry out our lawn), 

As well suppose my little handkerchief 

Would cover Samminiato, church and all, 

If out I threw it past the cypresses, 

As, in this ragged, narrow life of mine, 

Contain my own conclusions. 

But at least 
We'll shut up the persiani, and sit down. 
And when my head's done aching, in the cool, 
Write just a word to Kate and Carrington. 
May joy be with them ! she has chosen well. 
And he not ill. 

I should be glad, I think. 
Except for Romney. Had he married Kate, 
I surely, surely, should be very glad. 
This Florence sits upon me easily, 
With native air and tongue. My graves are calm. 
And do not too much hurt me. Marian's good, 



AURORA LEIGH. 269 

Gentle, and loving, lets me hold the child, 

Or drags him up the hill to find me flowers 

And fill these vases ere I'm quite awake, — 

My grandiose red tulips, which grow wild ; 

Or Dante's purple lilies, which he blew 

To a larger bubble with his prophet breath ; 

Or one of those tall flowering reeds that stand 

In Arno like* a sheaf of sceptres left 

By some remote dynasty of dead gods 

To suck the stream for ages, and get green. 

And blossom wheresoe'er a hand divine 

Had warmed the place with ichor. Such I find 

At early morning laid across my bed, 

And wake up pelted with a childish laugh 

Which even Marian's low precipitous " Hush ! " 

Has vainly interposed to put away ; 

While I, with shut eyes, smile and motion for 

The dewy kiss that's ever sure to come 

From mouth and cheeks, the whole child's face at once 

Dissolved on mine, as if a nosegay burst 

Its string with the weight of roses overblown. 

And dropt upon me. Surely I should be glad. 

The little creature almost loves me now, 

And calls my name " Alola," stripping off 

The rs like thorns, to make it smooth enough 

To take between his dainty, milk-fed lips. 

God love him ! I should certainly be glad. 

Except, God help me ! that I'm sorrowful 

Because of Romney. 

Romney, Romney ! W^ell, 
This grows absurd, — too like a tune that runs 
r the head, and forces all things in the world — 
Wind, rain, the creaking gnat or stuttering fly — 
To sing itself, and vex you ; yet perhaps 



270 AURORA LEIGH. 

A paltry tune you never fairly liked, 
Some " I'd be a butterfly," or " C'est I'amour." 
We're made so, — not such tyrants to ourselves, 
But still we are slaves to nature. Some of us 
Are turned, too, overmuch like some poor verse 
With a trick of ritournelle ; the same thing goes 
And comes back ever. 

Vincent Carrmgton 
Is " sorr}'," and I'm sorry ; but he's strong 
To mount from sorrow to his heaven of love. 
And when he says at moments, " Poor, poor Leigh, 
Who'll never call his own so true a heart. 
So fair a face even," he must quickly lose 
The pain of pity in the blush he makes 
By his very pitying eyes. The snow, for him. 
Has fallen in May, and finds the whole earth warm, 
And melts at the first touch of the green grass. 

But Romney, — he has chosen, after all. 

I think he had as excellent a sun 

To see by as most others ; and perhaps 

Has scarce seen really worse than some of us. 

When all's said. Let him pass. I'm not too much 

A woman, not to be a man for once, 

And bury all my dead like Alaric, 

Depositing the treasures of my soul 

In this drained water-course, then letting flow 

The river of life again with commerce-ships, 

And pleasure-barges full of silks and songs. 

Blow, winds, and help us. 

Ah, we mock ourselves 
With talking of the winds ! perhaps as much 
With other resolutions. How it weighs. 
This hot, sick air ! and how I covet here 



AURORA LEIGH. 271 



The dead's provision on the river couch, 
With silver curtains drawn on tinkhng rings ; 
Or else their rest in quiet crypts, laid by 
From heat and noise, from those cicale, say, 
And this more vexing heart-beat ! 

So it is. 
We covet for the soul the body's part, 
To die and rot. Even so, Aurora, ends 
Our aspiration who bespoke our place 
So far in the east. The occidental flats 
Had fed us fatter, therefore ? we have climbed 
Where herbage ends ? we want the beast's part now, 
And tire of the angel's ? Men define a man. 
The creature who stands front-ward to the stars, 
The creature who looks inward to himself. 
The tool-wright, laughing creature. 'Tis enough : 
We'll say, instead, the inconsequent creature, man. 
For that's his specialty. What creature else 
Conceives the circle, and then walks the square ? 
Loves things proved bad, and leaves a thing proved good ? 
You think the bee makes honey half a year. 
To loathe the comb in winter, and desire 
The little ant's food rather ? But a man — 
Note men ! — they are but women, after all, 
As women are but Auroras ! — there are men 
Born tender, apt to pale at a trodden worm. 
Who paint for pastime, in their favorite dream. 
Spruce auto-vestments flowered with crocus flames ; 
There are, too, who believe in hell, and lie , 
There are, too, who believe in heaven, and fear ; 
There are, who waste their souls in working out 
Life's problem on these sands betwixt two tides. 
Concluding, " Give us the oyster's part, in death." 



272 AURORA LEIGH. 

Alas, long-suffering and most patient God, 
Thou needst be surelier God to bear with us 
Than even to have made us ! thou aspire, aspire 
From henceforth for me ! thou who hast thyself 
Endured this fleshhood, knowing how as a soaked 
And sucking vesture it can drag us down, 
And choke us in the melancholy deep. 
Sustain me, that with thee I walk these waves, 
Resisting ! — breathe me upward, thou in me 
Aspiring, who art the way, the truth, the life, — 
That no truth henceforth seem indifferent. 
No way to truth laborious, and no life, 
Not even this life I live, intolerable ! 

The days went by. I took up the old days, 
With all their Tuscan pleasures worn and spoiled, 
Like some lost book we dropt in the long grass 
On such a happy summer afternoon. 
When last we read it with a loving friend, 
And find in autumn, when the friend is gone. 
The grass cut short, the weather changed, too late, 
And stare at, as at something wonderful. 
For sorrow, thinking how two hands before 
Had held up what is left to only one. 
And how we smiled when such a vehement nail 
Impressed the tiny dint here which presents 
This verse in fire forever. Tenderly 
And mournfully I lived. I knew the birds 
And insects, which looked fathered by the flowers 
And emulous of their hues ; I recognized 
The moths, with that great overpoise of wings 
Which make a mystery of them how at all 
They can stop flying ; butterflies, that bear 
Upon their blue wings such red embers round. 



AURORA LEIGH. 273 

They seem to scorch the blue air into holes 

Each flight they take ; and fireflies that suspire 

In short soft lapses of transported flame 

Across the tinkling dark, while overhead 

The constant and inviolable stars 

Outburn those lights-of-love ; melodious owls 

(If music had but one note and was sad, 

'Twould sound just so), and all the silent swirl 

Of bats that seem to follow in the air 

Some grand circumference of a shadowy dome 

To which we are blind ; and then the nightingales, 

Which pluck our heart across a garden-wall 

(When walking in the town), and carry it 

So high into the bowery almond-trees 

We tremble and are afraid, and feel as if 

The golden flood of moonlight unaware 

Dissolved the pillars of the steady earth 

And made it less substantial. And I knew 

The harmless opal snakes, the large-mouthed frogs 

(Those noisy vaunters of their shallow streams), 

And lizards, the green lightnings of the M'all, 

Which, if you sit down quiet, nor sigh loud, 

Will flatter you, and take you for a stone. 

And flash familiarly about your feet 

With such prodigious eyes in such small heads ! — 

I knew them (though they had somewhat dwindled from 

My childish imagery), and kept in mind 

How last I sate among them equally. 

In fellowship and mateship, as a child 

Feels equal still toward insect, beast, and bird. 

Before the Adam in him has foregone 

All privilege of Eden, making friends 

And talk with such a bird or such a goat, 

And buying many a two-inch-wide rush-cage 



274 AURORA LEIGH. 

To let out the caged cricket on a tree, 

Saying, " Oh, my dear grillino, were you cramped ? 

And are you happy with the ilex-leaves ? 

And do you love me who have let you go ? 

Say_y^i" in singing, and I'll understand." 

But now the creatures all seemed farther off, 

No longer mine, nor like me, only there^ 

A gulf between us. I could yearn, indeed, 

Like other rich men, for a drop of dew 

To cool this heat, — a drop of the early dew, 

The irrecoverable child-innocence 

(Before the heart took fire and withered life) 

When childhood might pair equally with birds ; 

But now . , . .the birds were grown too proud for us, 

Alas ! the very sun forbids the dew. 

And I — I had come back to an empty nest. 

Which every bird's too wise for. How I heard 

My father's step on that deserted ground, 

His voice along that silence, as he told 

The names of bird and insect, tree and flower. 

And all the presentations of the stars 

Across Valdarno, interposing still 

" My child," " my child." When fathers say, " My child,' 

'Tis easier to conceive the universe. 

And life's transitions down the steps of law. 

I rode once to the little mountain-house 

As fast as if to find my father there ; 

But when in sight oft, within fifty yards, 

I dropped my horse's bridle on his neck. 

And paused upon his flank. The house's front 

Was cased with lingots of ripe Indian corn 



AURORA LEIGH. 275 



In tessellated order and device 

Of golden patterns, not a stone of wall 

Uncovered, not an inch of room to grow 

A vine-leaf. The old porch had disappeared, 

And rio-ht in the open doorway sate a girl 

At plaiting straws, her black hair strained away 

To a scarlet 'kerchief caught beneath her chin 

In Tuscan fashion, her full ebon eyes. 

Which looked too heavy to be lifted so, 

Still dropt and lifted toward the mulberry-tree. 

On which the lads were busy with their staves 

In shout and laughter, stripping every bough, 

As bare as winter, of those summer leaves 

My father had not changed for all the silk 

In which the ugly silkworms hide themselves. 

Enough. My horse recoiled before my heart. 

I turned the rein abruptly. Back we went 

As fast, to Florence. 

That was trial enough 
Of graves. I would not visit, if I could, 
My father's, or my mother's any more. 
To see if stone-cutter or lichen beat 
So early in the race, or throw my flowers, 
Which could not outsmell heaven, or sweeten earth. 
They live too far above, that I should look 
So far below to find them : let me think 
That rather they are visiting my grave, 
Called life here (undeveloped yet to life). 
And that they drop upon me now and then, 
For token or for solace, some small weed 
Least odorous of the growths of paradise, 
To spare such pungent scents as kill with joy. 

My old Assunta, too, was dead, — was dead. 



2'] 6 AURORA LEIGH. 

O land of all men's past ! for me alone 

It would not mix its tenses. I was past, 

It seemed, like others, — only not in heaven 

And many a Tuscan eve I wandered down 

The cypress alley like a restless ghost 

That tries its feeble, ineffectual breath 

Upon its own charred funeral-brands put out 

Too soon, where black and stiff stood up the trees 

Against the broad vermilion of the skies. 

Such skies ! — all clouds abolished in a sweep 

Of God's skirt, with a dazzle to ghosts and men, 

As down I went, saluting on the bridge 

The hem of such before 'twas caught away 

Beyond the peaks of Lucca. Underneath 

The river, just escaping from the weight 

Of that intolerable glory, ran 

In acquiescent shadow murmurously ; 

While up beside it streamed the festa-folk 

With fellow-murmurs from their feet and fans 

And issimo and iiio and sweet poise 

Of vowels in their pleasant, scandalous talk 

Returning from the grand-duke's dairy-farm 

Before the trees grew dangerous at eight 

(For " trust no tree by moonlight," Tuscans say), 

To eat their ice at Donay's tenderly, 

Each lovely lady close to a cavalier 

Who holds her dear fan while she feeds her smile 

On meditative spoonfuls of vanilla. 

And listens to his hot-breathed vows of love, 

Enough to thaw her cream, and scorch his beard. 

'Twas little matter. I could pass them by 

Indifferently, not fearing to be known. 

No danger of being wrecked upon a friend, 



AURORA LEIGH. 277 



And forced to take an iceberg for an isle ! 

Tlie very English here must wait and learn 

To hang the cobweb of their gossip out 

To catch a fly. I'm happy. It's sublime, 

This perfect solitude of foreign lands ! 

To be as if you had not been till then, 

And were then, simply that you chose to be ; 

To spring up, not be brought forth from the ground, 

Like grasshoppers at Athens, and skip thrice 

Before a woman makes a pounce on you 

And plants you in her hair ! — possess, yourself, 

A new world all alive with creatures new, — 

New sun, new moon, new flowers, new people — ah. 

And be possessed by none of them ! no right 

In one to call your name, inquire your where, 

Or what you think of Mister Someone's book, 

Or Mister Other's marriage or decease. 

Or how's the headache which you had last week, 

Or why you look so pale still, since it's gone. 

— Such most surprising riddance of one's life 

Comes next one's death ; 'tis disembodiment 

Without the pang. I marvel people choose 

To stand stock-still, like fakirs, till the moss 

Grows on them and they cry out, self-admired, 

" How verdant and how virtuous ! " Well, I'm glad, 

Or should be, if grown foreign to myself 

As surely as to others. 

Musing so, 
I walked the narrow, unrecognizing streets, 
Where many a palace-front peers gloomily 
Through stony visors iron-barred (prepared 
Alike, should foe or lover pass that way. 
For guest or victim), and came wandering out 
Upon the churches with mild open doors 



2/8 AURORA LEIGH. 

And plaintive wail of vespers, where a few, 

Those chiefly women, sprinkled round in blots 

Upon the dusky pavement, knelt and prayed 

Toward the altar's silver-glory. Oft a ray 

(I liked to sit and watch) would tremble out, 

Just touch some face more lifted, more in need 

(Of course a woman's), while I dreamed a tale 

To fit its fortunes. There was one who looked 

As if the earth had suddenly grown too large 

For such a little humpbacked thing as she ; 

The pitiful black 'kerchief round her neck 

Sole proof she had had a mother. One, again, 

Looked sick for love, seemed praying some soft saint 

To put more virtue in the new, fine scarf 

She spent a fortnight's meals on yesterday, 

That cruel Gigi might return his eyes 

From Giuliana. There was one, so old, 

So old, to kneel grew easier than to stand ; 

So solitary, she accepts at last 

Our Lady for her gossip, and frets on 

Against the sinful world which goes its rounds, 

In marrying and being married, just the same 

As when 'twas almost good and had the right 

(Her Gian alive and she herself eighteen), 

" And yet, now even, if Madonna willed. 

She'd win a tern in Thursday's lottery. 

And better all things. Did she dream for naught, 

That, boiling cabbage for the fast-day's soup, 

It smelt like blessed entrails ? such a dream 

For naught t would sweetest Mary cheat her so, 

And lose that certain candle, straight and white 

As any fair grand-duchess in her teens, 

Which otherwise should flare here in a week ? 

Benigna sis, thou beauteous Queen of heaven ! " 



AURORA LEIGH. 279 

I sate there, musing, and imagining 

Such utterance from such faces, poor blind souls 

That writhe toward heaven along the Devil's trail : 

Who knows, I thought, but he may stretch his hand 

And pick them up ? 'Tis written in the Book 

He heareth the young ravens when they cry, 

And yet they cry for carrion. O my God ! 

And we who make excuses for the rest, 

We do it in our measure. Then I knelt. 

And dropped my head upon the pavement, too, 

And prayed — since I was foolish in desire 

Like other creatures, craving offal-food — 

That he would stop his ears to what I said. 

And only listen to the run and beat 

Of this poor, passionate, helpless blood — 

And then 
I lay, and spoke not ; but he heard in heaven. 

So many Tuscan evenings passed the same. 

I could not lose a sunset on the bridge. 

And would not miss a vigil in the church. 

And liked to mingle with the out-door crowd, 

So strange and gay, and ignorant of my face ; 

For men you know are not as good as trees. 

And only once, at the Santissima, 

I almost chanced upon a man I knew. 

Sir Blaise Delorme. He saw me certainly, 

And somewhat hurried, as he crossed himself, 

The smoothness of the action ; then half bowed, 

But only half, and merely to my shade, 

I slipped so quick behind the porphyry plinth. 

And left him dubious if 'twas really I, 

Or peradventure Satan's usual trick 

To keep a mounting saint uncanonized. 



280 AURORA LEIGH. 

But he was safe for that time, and I, too : 

The argent angels in the altar-flare 

Absorbed his soul next moment. The good man ! 

In England we were scarce acquaintances, 

That here in Florence he should keep my thought 

Beyond the image on his eye, which came 

And went : and yet his thought disturbed my life ; 

For after that I oftener sat at home 

On evenings, watching how they fined themselves 

With gradual conscience to a perfect night. 

Until the moon, diminished to a curve. 

Lay out there like a sickle for His hand 

Who Cometh down at last to reap the earth. 

At such times ended seemed my trade of verse : 

I feared to jingle bells upon my robe 

Before the four-faced silent cherubim. 

With God so near me, could I sing of God ? 

I did not write, nor read, nor even think. 

But sate absorbed amid the quickening glooms. 

Most like some passive broken lump of salt 

Dropt in by chance to a bowl of oenomel. 

To spoil the drink a little, and lose itself, 

Dissolving slowly, slowly, until lost. 



EIGHTH BOOK. 



One eve it happened, when I sate alone, 
Alone, upon the terrace of my tower, 
A book upon my knees to counterfeit 
The reading that I never read at all. 
While Marian, in the garden down below, 
Knelt by the fountain I could just hear thrill 



AURORA LEIGH. 28 1 

The drowsy silence of the exhausted day, 

And peeled a new fig from that purple heap 

In the grass beside her, turning out the red 

To feed her eager child, who sucked at it 

With vehement lips across a gap of air, 

As he stood opposite, face and curls aflame 

With that last sun-ray, crying, " Give me, give ! " 

And stamping with imperious baby-feet, 

(We're all born princes) something startled me, — 

The laugh of sad and innocent souls that breaks 

Abruptly, as if frightened at itself. 

'Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance above 

In sudden shame that I should hear her laugh, 

And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book. 

And knew, the first time, 'twas Boccaccio's tale, 

The falcon's, of the lover who for love 

Destroyed the best that loved him. Some of us 

Do it still, and then we sit, and laugh no more. 

Laugh yoii^ sweet Marian, you've the right to laugh, 

Since God himself is for you, and a child. 

For me there's somewhat else, and so I sigh. 

The heavens were making room to hold the night, 

The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates 

To let the stars out slowly (prophesied 

In close-approaching advent, not discerned), 

While still the cue-owls from the cypresses 

Of the Poggio called and counted every pulse 

Of the skyey palpitation. Gradually 

The purple and transparent shadows slow 

Had filled up the whole valley to the brim, 

And flooded all the city, which you saw 

As some drowned city in some enchanted sea, 

Cut off from nature, drawing you who gaze, 



282 AURORA LEIGH. 

With passionate desire, to leap and plunge, 

And find a sea-king with a voice of waves. 

And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locks 

You cannot kiss but you shall bring away 

Their salt upon your lips. The duomo-bell 

Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down, 

So deep, and twenty churches answer it 

The same, with twenty various instances. 

Some gaslights trembled along squares and streets ; 

The Pitti's palace-front is drawn in fire 

And, past the quays, Maria Novella Place, 

In which the mystic obelisks stand up 

Triangular, pyramidal, each based 

Upon its fore-square brazen tortoises. 

To guard that fair church, Buonarroti's Bride, 

That stares out from her large, blind dial-eyes 

(Her quadrant and armillary dials, black 

With rhythms of many suns and moons), in vain 

Inquiry for so rich a soul as his. 

Methinks I have plunged, I see it all so clear . . . 

And O my heart ... the sea-king ! 

In my ears 
The sound of waters. There he stood, my king ! 

I felt him, rather than beheld him. Up 

I rose, as if he were my king indeed. 

And then sate down, in trouble at myself, 

And struggling for my woman's empery. 

'Tis pitiful ; but women are so made : 

We'll die for you, perhaps, — 'tis probable ; 

But we'll not spare you an inch of our full height : 

We'll have our whole just stature, — five feet four, 



AURORA LEIGH. 283 

Though laid out in our coffins : pitiful. 

— " You, Romney ! — Lady Waldemar is here ? " 

He answered in a voice which was not his. 

" I have her letter : you shall read it soon. 

But first I must be heard a little, I 

Who have waited long and travelled far for that. 

Although you thought to have shut a tedious book, 

And farewell. Ah, you dog-eared such a page, 

And here you find me." 

Did he touch my hand. 
Or but my sleeve ? I trembled, hand and foot : 
He must have touched me. " Will you sit ? " I asked, 
And motioned to a chair ; but down he sate, 
A little slowly, as a man in doubt. 
Upon the couch beside me, couch and chair 
Being wheeled upon the terrace. 

" You are come, 
My Cousin Romney ? This is wonderful. 
But all is wonder on such summer-nights ; 
And nothing should surprise us any more, 
Who see that miracle of stars. Behold." 

I signed above, where all the stars were out, 
As if an urgent heat had started there 
A secret writing from a sombre page, 
A blank last moment, crowded suddenly 
With hurrying splendors. 

" Then you do not know " — 
He murmured. 

"Yes, I know," I said, " I know. 
I had the news from Vincent Carrington. 
And yet I did not think you'd leave the work 
In England for so much even, — though of course 



284 AURORA LEIGH. 

You'll make a work-day of your holiday, 
And turn it to our Tuscan people's use, — 
Who much need helping, since the Austrian boar 
(So bold to cross the Alp at Lombardy, 
And dash his brute front unabashed against 
The steep snow-bosses of that shield of God 
Who soon shall rise in wrath, and shake it clear) 
Came hither also, raking up our grape 
And olive gardens with his tyrannous tusk. 
And rolling on our maize with all his swine." 

" You had the news from Vincent Carrington," 
He echoed, picking up the phrase beyond, 
As if he knew the rest was merely talk 
To fill a gap and keep out a strong wind : 
" You had, then, Vincent's personal news ? " 

" His own," 
I answered. " All that ruined world of yours 
Seems crumbling into marriage. Carrington 
Has chosen wisely." 

*' Do you take it so ? " 
He cried, " and is it possible at last "... 
He paused there, and then, inward to himself, — 
" Too much at last, too late ! yet certainly "... 
(And there his voice swayed as an Alpine plank 
That feels a passionate torrent underneath) 
"The knowledge, had I known it first or last. 
Could scarce have changed the actual case for me^ 
And best for her at this time." 

Nay, I thought. 
He loves Kate Ward, it seems, now, like a man. 
Because he has married Lady Waldemar ! 
Ah, Vincent's letter said how Leigh was moved 
To hear that Vincent was betrothed to Kate. 



AURORA LEIGH. 285 



With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells 
In this world ! Then I spoke, — "I did not think, 
My cousin, you had ever known Kate Ward." 

" In fact I never knew her. 'Tis enough 
That Vincent did, and therefore chose his wife 
For other reasons than those topaz eyes 
We've heard of. Not to undervalue them, 
For all that. One takes up the world with eyes." 

— Including Romney Leigh, I thought again, 
Albeit he knows them only by repute. 
How vile must all men be, since he's a man ! 
His deep, pathetic voice, as if he guessed 
I did not surely love him, took the word : 
'• You never got a letter from Lord Howe 
A month back, dear Aurora ? " 

"None," I said. 

" I felt it was so," he replied. " Yet, strange ! 
Sir Blaise Delorme has passed through Florence ? " 

"Ay, 

By chance I saw him in Our Lady's Church, 

(I saw him, mark you ; but he saw not me) 

Clean-washed in holy-water from the count 

Of things terrestrial, — letters and the rest ; 

He had crossed us out together with his sins. 

Ay, strange ; but only strange that good Lord Howe 

Preferred him to the pof^t because of pauls, 

For me, I'm sworn to never trust a man — 

At least with letters." 

"There were facts to tell, 
To smooth with 63^6 and accent. How supposed . . 
Well, well, no matter ! there was dubious need : 



286 



AURORA LEIGH. 



You heard the news from Vincent Carrin^ton. 
And yet perhaps you had been startled less 
To see me, dear Aurora, if you had read 
That letter." 

— Now he sets me down as vexed. 
I think I've draped myself in woman's pride 
To a perfect purpose. Oh, I'm vexed, it seems ! 
My friend Lord Howe deputes his friend Sir Blaise 
To break, as softly as a sparrow's ^gg 
That lets a bird out tenderly, the news 
Of Romney's marriage to a certain saint, 
To smooth with eye and accejit, — indicate 
His possible presence. Excellently well 
You've played your part, my Lady Waldemar, — 
As I've played mine. 

" Dear Romney," I began, 
" You did not use of old to be so like 
A Greek king coming from a taken Troy 
'Twas needful that precursors spread your path 
With three-piled carpets to receive your foot. 
And dull the sound oft. For myself, be sure, 
Although it frankly grinds the gravel here, 
I still can bear it. Yet I'm sorry, too. 
To lose this famous letter, which Sir Blaise 
Has twisted to a lighter absently 
To fire some holy taper. Dear Lord Howe 
Writes letters good for all things but to lose : 
And many a flower of London gossipry 
Has dropt wherever such a stem broke off. 
Of course I feel that, lonely among my vines. 
Where nothing's talked of, save the blight again, 
And no more Chianti ! Still the letter's use 
As preparation . . . Did I start indeed ? " 
Last night I started at a cockchafer, 



AURORA LEIGH. 287 



And shook a half-hour after. Have you learnt 
No more of women, 'spite of privilege, 
Than still to take account too seriously 
Of such weak flutterings ? Why, we like it, sir : 
We get our powers and our effects that way. 
The trees stand stiff and still at time of frost, 
If no wind tears them ; but let summer come. 
When trees are happy, and a breath avails 
To set them trembling through a million leaves 
In luxury of emotion. Something less 
It takes to move a woman : let her start 
And shake at pleasure, nor conclude at yours, 
The winter's bitter, but the summer's green." 

He answered, " Be the summer ever green 

With you, Aurora ! though you sweep your sex 

With somewhat bitter gusts from where you live 

Above them, whirling downward from your heights 

Your very own pine-cones, in a grand disdain 

Of the lowland burrs with which you scatter them. 

So high and cold to others and yourself, 

A little less to Romney were unjust, 

And thus, I would not have you. Let it pass : 

I feel content so. You can bear, indeed. 

My sudden step beside you : but for me, 

'Twould move me sore to hear your softened voice, — 

Aurora's voice, — if softened unaware 

In pity of what I am." 

Ah, friend ! I thought. 
As husband of the Lady Waldemar 
You're granted very sorely pitiable ; 
And yet Aurora Leigh must guard her voice 
From softening in the pity of your case. 
As if from lie or license. Certainly 



288 AURORA LEIGH. 

We'll soak up all the slush and soil of life 
With softened voices, ere we come to you. 

At which I interrupted my own thought, 

And spoke out calmly. " Let us ponder, friend. 

Whate'er our state, we must have made it first ; 

And though the thing displease us, ay, perhaps 

Displease us warrantably, never doubt 

That other states, thought possible once, and then 

Rejected by the instinct of our lives. 

If then adopted, had displeased us more 

Than this in which the choice, the will, the love, 

Has stamped the honor of a patent act 

From henceforth. What we choose may not be good ; 

But that we choose it proves it good for us 

Potentially, fantastically, now 

Or last year, rather than a thing we saw. 

And saw no need for choosing. Moths will burn 

Their wings, — which proves that light is good for moths, 

Who else had flown not where they agonize." 

" Ay, light is good," he echoed, and there paused : 
And then abruptly ..." Marian. Marian's well ? " 

I bowed my head, but found no word. 'Twas hard 
To speak of he?- to Lady Waldemar's 
New husband. How much did he know, at last ? 
How much ? how little ? He would take no sign, 
But straight repeated, — " Marian. Is she well ? " 

" She's well," I answered. 

She was there in sight 
An hour back ; but the night had drawn her home, 



AURORA LEIGH. 289 



Where still I heard her in an upper room, 

Her low voice singing to the child in bed, 

Who, restless with the summer-heat and play, 

And slumber snatched at noon, was long sometimes 

In falling off, and took a score of songs 

And mother hushes ere she saw him sound. 

" She's well," I answered. 

" Here ? " he asked. 

"Yes, here." 

He stopped and sighed. " That shall be presently ; 
But now this must be. I have words to say, 
And would be alone to say them, I with you, 
And no third troubling." 

" Speak, then," I returned, 
" She will not vex you." 

At which, suddenly 
He turned his face upon me with its smile. 
As if to crush me. " I have read your book, 
Aurora." 

" You have read it," I replied, 
" And I have writ it —we have done with it. 
And now the rest ? " 

" The rest is like the first," 
He answered, " for the book is in my heart. 
Lives in me, wakes in me, and dreams in me : 
My daily bread tastes of it ; and my wine 
Which has no smack of it, — I pour it out. 
It seems unnatural drinking." 

Bitterly 
I took the word up : " Never waste your wine. 



290 AURORA LEIGH. 



The book lived in me ere it lived in you ; 

I know it closer than another does, 

And how it's foolish, feeble, and afraid. 

And all unworthy so much compliment. 

Beseech you, keep your wine, and, when you drink, 

Still wish some happier fortune to a friend 

Than even to have written a far better book." 

He answered gently : " That is consequent. 

The poet looks beyond the book he has made, 

Or else he had not made it. If a man 

Could make a man he'd henceforth be a god 

In feeling what a little thing is man : 

It is not my case. And this special book, 

I did not make it, to make light of it : 

It stands above my knowledge, draws me up ; 

'Tis high to me. It may be that the book 

Is not so high, but I so low, instead ; 

Still high to me. I mean no compliment : 

I will not say there are not, young or old, 

Male wTiters, ay, or female, let it pass. 

Who'll write us richer and completer books. 

A man may love a woman perfectly. 

And yet by no means ignorantly maintain 

A thousand women have not larger eyes : 

Enough that she alone has looked at him 

With eyes that, large or small, have won his soul 

And so, this book, Aurora, — so, your book." 

" Alas ! " I answered, " is it so, indeed ? " 
And then was silent. 

" Is it so, indeed," 
He echoed, " that alas is all your word ? '* 
I said, " I'm thinking of a far-off June, 



AURORA LEIGH. 2 ci 



When you and I, upon my birthday, once, 
Discoursed of life and art, with both untried. 
I'm thinking, Romney, how 'twas morning then. 
And now 'tis night." 

"And now," he said, "'tis night." 

" I'm thinking," I resumed, " 'tis somewhat sad, 
That if I had known that morning in the dew. 
My Cousin Romney would have said such words 
On such a night at close of many years. 
In speaking of a future book of mine. 
It would have pleased me better as a hope 
Than as an actual grace it can at all • 
That's sad, I'm thinking." 

" Ay, he said, "'tis night." 

" And there," I added lightly, " are the stars , 
And here we'll talk of stars, and not of books." 

" You have the stars," he murmured, — it is well : 
Be like them. Shine, Aurora, on my dark. 
Though high and cold, and only like a star. 
And for this short night only, — you who keep 
The same Aurora of the bright June day 
That withered up the flowers before my face. 
And turned me from the garden evermore, 
Because I was not worthy. Oh, deserved. 
Deserved ! that I, who verily had not learnt 
God's lesson half, attaining as a dunce 
To obliterate good words with fractious thumbs, 
And cheat myself of the context, — / should push 
Aside, with male ferocious impudence, 
The world's Aurora, who had conned her part 



292 AURORA LEIGH. 



On the other side the leaf ! ignore her so, 

Because she was a woman and a queen, 

And had no beard to bristle through her song, 

My teacher, who has taught me with a book. 

My Miriam, whose sweet mouth, when nearly drowned, 

I still heard singing on the shore ! Deserved, 

That here I should look up unto the stars. 

And miss the. glory." 

"Can I understand 1 " 
I broke in. " You speak wildly, Romney Leigh, 
Or I hear wildly. In that morning-time 
We recollect, the roses were too red. 
The trees too green, reproach too natural 
If one should see not what the other saw : 
And now it's night, remember ; we have shades 
In place of colors ; we are now grown cold 
And old, my Cousin Romney. Pardon me, — 
I'm very happy that you like my book, 
And very sorry that I quoted back 
A ten-years' birthday. 'Twas so mad a thing 
In any woman, I scarce marvel much 
You took it for a venturous piece of spite. 
Provoking such excuses as indeed 
I cannot call you slack in." 

"Understand," 
He answered sadly, " something, if but so. 
This night is softer than an English day, 
And men may well come hither when they're sick, 
To draw in easier breath from larger air. 
'Tis thus with me : I come to you — to you. 
My Italy of women, just to breathe 
My soul out once before you, ere I go, 
As humble as God makes me at the last, 
(I thank him) quite out of the way of men, 



AURORA LEIGH. 293 

And yours, Aurora, — like a punished child. 
His cheeks all blurred with tears and naughtiness, 
To silence in a corner. I am come 
To speak, beloved "... 

Wisely, Cousin Leigh, 
And worthily of us both." 

" Yes, worthily ; 
For this time I must speak out, and confess 
That I, so truculent in assumption once, 
So absolute in dogma, proud in aim, 
And fierce in expectation^ — I, who felt 
The whole world tugging at my skirts for help, 
As if no other man than I could pull, 
Nor woman, but I led her by the hand, 
Nor cloth hold, but 1 had it in my coat, — 
Do know myself to-night for what I was 
On that June day, Aurora. Poor bright day. 
Which meant the best ... a woman and a rose, 
And which I smote upon the cheek with words. 
Until it turned and rent me. Young you were, 
That birthday, poet ; but you talked the right : 
While I ... I built up follies, like a wall. 
To intercept the sunshine and your face. 
Your face ! that's worse." 

" Speak wisely, Cousin Leigh." 

" Yes, wisely, dear Aurora, though too late, 
But then, not wisely. I was heavy then, 
And stupid, and distracted with the cries 
Of tortured prisoners in the pohshed brass 
Of that Phalarian bull, society, 
Which seems to bellow bravely like ten bulls, 
But, if you listen, moans and cries instead 
Despairingly, like victims tossed and gored 



294 AURORA LEIGH. 

And trampled by their hoofs. I heard the cries 

Too close : I could not hear the angels lift 

A fold of rustling air, nor what they said 

To help my pity. I beheld the world 

As one great famishing carnivorous mouth, — 

A huge, deserted, callow, blind bird thing, 

With piteous open beak that hurt my heart, 

Till down upon the filthy ground I dropped. 

And tore the violets up to get the worms. 

Worms, worms, was all my cry : an open mouth, 

A gross want, bread to fill it to the lips, 

No more. That poor men narrowed their demands 

To such an end was virtue, I supposed. 

Adjudicating that to see it so 

Was reason. Oh, I did not push the case 

Up higher, and ponder how it answers when 

The rich take up the same cry for themselves, 

Professing equally, — ' An open mouth 

A gross need, food to fill us, and no more.' 

Why, that's so far from virtue, only vice 

Can find excuse for't ! that makes libertines, 

And slurs our cruel streets from end to end 

With eighty thousand women in one smile, 

Who only smile at night beneath the gas. 

The body's satisfaction, and no more. 

Is used for argument against the soul's. 

Here too : the want, here too, implies the right. 

— How dark I stood that morning in the sun, 

My best Aurora (though I saw your eyes) 

When first you told me . . . oh, I recollect 

The sound, and how you lifted your small hand, 

And how your white dress and your burnished curls 

Went greatening round you in the still, blue air, 

As if an inspiration from within 



AURORA LEIGH. 295 



Had blown them all out when you spoke the words, 

Even these, -^ ' You will not compass your poor ends 

Of barley-feedmg and material ease 

Without the poet's individualism 

To work your universal. It takes a soul 

To move a body ; it takes a high-souled man 

To move the masses even to a cleaner sty ; 

It takes the ideal to blow an inch inside 

llie dust of the actual ; and your Fouriers failed, 

Because not poets enough to un4erstand 

That life develops from within.' -, I say 

Your words : I could say other words of yours ; 

For none of all your words will let me go, 

Like sweet verbena, which, being brushed against, 

Will hold us three hours after by the smell, 

In spite of long walks upon windy hills. 

But these words dealt in sharper perfume ; these 

Were ever on me, stinging through my dreams, 

And saying themselves forever o'er my acts 

Like some unhappy verdict. That I failed 

Is certain. Sty or no sty, to contrive 

The swine's propulsion toward the precipice 

Proved easy and plain. I subtly organized 

And ordered, built the cards up high and higher, 

Till, some one breathing, all fell flat again ; 

In setting right society's wide wrong. 

Mere life's so fatal ! So I failed indeed 

Once, twice, and oftener, hearing through the rents 

Of obstinate purpose, still those words of yours, — 

' You will not compass your poor ends, not you ! ' 

But harder than you said them ; every time 

Still farther from your voice, until they came 

To overcrow me with triumphant scorn. 

Which vexed me to resistance. Set down this 



296 AURORA LEIGH. 

For condemnation. I was guilty here ; 

I stood upon my deed, and fought my doubt, 

As men will, — for I doubted, — till at last 

My deed gave way beneath me suddenly, 

And left me what I am. The curtain dropped, 

My part quite ended, all the foot-lights quenched. 

My own soul hissing at me through the dark, 

I ready for confession, — I was wrong, 

I've sorely failed, I've slipped the ends of life, 

I yield : you have conquered." 

" Stay," I answered him 
" I've something for your hearing, also. I 
Have failed too." 

" You ! " he said, " you're very great : 
The sadness of your greatness fits you well. 
As if the plume upon a hero's casque 
Should nod a shadow upon his victor's face." 

I took him up austerely, — " You have read 
My book, but not my heart ; for, recollect, 
'Tis writ in Sanscrit, which you bungle at. 
I've surely failed, I know, if failure means 
To look back sadly on work gladly done. 
To wander on my Mountains of Delight, 
So called (I can remember a friend's words 
As well as you, sir), weary, and in want 
Of even a sheep-path, thinking bitterly . . . 
Well, well ! no matter. I but say so much, 
To keep you, Romney Leigh, from saying more, 
And let you feel I am not so high indeed. 
That J can bear to have you at my foot. 
Or safe, that I can help you. That June day. 
Too deeply sunk in craterous sunsets now 
For you or me to dig it up alive ; 



AURORA LEIGH. 297 

To pluck it out all bleeding with spent flame 

At the roots, before those moralizing stars 

We have got instead, — that poor lost day, you said 

Some words as truthful as the thing of mine 

You cared to keep in memory ; and I hold 

If I that day, and being the girl I was. 

Had shown a gentler spirit, less arrogance. 

It had not hurt me. You will scarce mistake 

The point here. I but only think, you see. 

More justly, that's more humbly of myself. 

That when I tried a crown on, and supposed . . . 

Nay, laugh, sir, — I'll laugh with you ! — pray you laugh. 

I've had so many birthdays since that day, 

I've learnt to prize mirth's opportunities, 

Which come too seldom. Was it you who said 

I was not changed 1 the same Aurora ? Ah, 

We could laugh there, too ! Why, Ulysses' dog 

Knew him^ and wagged his tail and died ; but if 

I had owned a dog, I, too, before my Troy, 

And if you brought him here ... I warrant you 

He'd look into my face, bark lustily. 

And live on stoutly, as the creatures will 

Whose spirits are not troubled by long loves. 

A dog would never know me, I'm so changed. 

Much less a friend . . . except that you're misled 

By the color of the hair, the trick of the voice. 

Like that Aurora Leigh's." 

" Sweet trick of voice ! 
I would be a dog for this, to know it at last, 
And die upon the falls of it. O love, 
O best Aurora ! are you then so sad 
You scarcely had been sadder as my wife ? " 

" Your wife, sir ! I must certainly be changed. 



298 AURORA LEIGH. 

If I, Aurora, can have said a thing 
So Hght, it catches at the knightly spurs 
Of a noble gentleman like Romney Leigh, 
And trips him from his honorable sense 
Of what befits." . . . 

" You wholly misconceive," 
He answered. 

I returned, — " I'm glad of it. 
But keep from misconception, too, yourself : 
I am not humbled to so low a point. 
Nor so far saddened. If I am sad at all. 
Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head 
Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth. 
Though ne'er so merry : I'm perforce more wise, 
And that, in truth, means sadder. For the rest, 
Look here, sir : I was right, upon the whole, 
That birthday morning. 'Tis impossible 
To get at men excepting through their souls, 
However open their carnivorous jaws; 
And poets get directlier at the soul 
Than any of your economists ; for which 
You must not overlook the poet's work 
When scheming for the world's necessities. 
The soul's the way. Not even Christ himself 
Can save man else than as he holds man's soul ; 
And therefore did he come into our flesh, 
As some wise liunter, creeping on his knees 
With a torch, into the blackness of a cave^ 
To face and quell the beast there, — take the soul. 
And so possess the whole man, body and soul. 
I said, so. far, right, yes; not farther, though : 
We both were wrong that June day, — both as wrong 
As an east wind had been. I who talked of art, 
And you who grieved for all men's griefs . . . what then ? 



AURORA LEIGH. 299 

We surely made too small a part for God 

In these things. What we are imports us more 

Than what we eat; and life, you've granted me, 

Develops from within. But innermost 

Of the inmost, most interior of the interne, 

God claims his own, divine humanity 

Renewing nature ; or the piercingest verse, 

Prest in by subtlest poet still must keep 

As much upon the outside of a man 

As the very bowl in which he dips his beard. 

— And then . . . the rest ; I cannot surely speak : 

Perhaps I doubt more than you doubted then, 

If I the poet's veritable charge. 

Have borne upon my forehead. If I have, 

It might feel somewhat liker to a crown. 

The foolish green one, even. Ah, I think, 

And chiefly when the sun shines, that I've failed. 

But what then, Romney ? Though we fail indeed, 

You ... I ... a score of such weak workers . . . He 

Fails never. IE he cannot work by us. 

He will work over us. Does he want a man, 

Much less a woman, think you .-* Every time 

The star winks there, so many souls are born. 

Who all shall work, too. Let our own be calm : 

We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars, 

Impatient that we're nothing." 

"Could we sit 
Just so forever, sweetest friend," he said, 
"My failure would seem better than success. 
And yet indeed your book has dealt with me 
More gently, cousin, than you ever will. 
Your book brought down entire the bright June day. 
And set me wandering in the garden-walks. 
And let me watch the garland in a place 



300 AURORA LEIGH. 

You blushed so . . . nay, forgive me, do not stir ; 

I only thank the book for what it taught, 

And what permitted. Poet, doubt yourself, 

But never doubt that you're a poet to me 

From henceforth. You have written poems, sweet, 

Which moved me in secret, as the sap is moved 

In still March branches, signless as a stone ; 

But this last book o'ercame me like soft rain 

Which falls at midnight, when the tightened bark 

Breaks out into unhesitating buds. 

And sudden protestations of the sirring. 

In all your other books I saw but you. 

A man may see the moon so, in a pond, 

And not be nearer therefore to the moon. 

Nor use the sight . . . except to drown himself : 

And so I forced my heart back from the sight, 

For what had /, I thought, to do with her, 

Aurora . . . Romney ? But in this last book 

You showed me something separate from yourself, 

Beyond you, and I bore to take it in. 

And let it draw me. You have shown me truths, 

O June-day friend, that help me now at night 

When June is over, — truths not yours, indeed, 

But set within my reach by means of you. 

Presented by your voice and verse the way 

To take them clearest. Verily I was wrong ; 

And verily many thinkers of this age. 

Ay, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, 

Are wrong in just my sense who understood 

Our natural world too insularly, as if 

No spiritual counterpart completed it. 

Consummating its meaning, rounding all 

To justice and perfection, line by line, 

Form by form, nothing single nor alone, 



AURORA LEIGH. 30 ^ 

The great below clinched by the great above, 

Shade here authenticating substance there, 

The body proving spirit, as the effect 

The cause : we meantime being too grossly apt 

To hold the natural, as dogs a bone, 

(Though reason and nature beat us in the face) 

So obstinately that we'll break our teeth 

Or ever we let go. For everywhere 

We're too materialistic, eating clay, 

(Like men of the west) instead of Adam's corn 

And Noah's wine, — clay by handfuls, clay by lumps. 

Until we're filled up to the throat with clay. 

And grow the grimy color of the ground 

On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist 

The age's name is. God himself, with some, 

Is apprehended as the bare result 

Of what his hand materially has made. 

Expressed in such an algebraic sign 

Called God ; that is, to put it otherwise, 

They add up nature to a nought of God, 

And cross the quotient. There are many even. 

Whose names are written in the Christian church 

To no dishonor, diet still on mud. 

And splash the altars with it. You might think 

The clay Christ laid upon their eyelids, when, 

Still blind, he called them to the use of sight. 

Remained there to retard its exercise 

With clogging incrustations. Close to heaven, 

They see for mysteries, through the open doors, 

Vague puffs of smoke from pots of earthenware, 

And fain would enter, when their time shall come. 

With quite another body than St. Paul 

Has promised, — husk and chaff, the whole barley-corn. 

Or where's the resurrection ? " 



302 AURORA LEIGH. 

" Thus it is," 
I sighed. And he resumed with mournful face. 
" Beginning so, and filling up with clay, 
The wards of this great key, the natural world. 
And fumbling vainly therefore at the lock 
Of the spiritual, we feel ourselves shut in 
With all the wild-beast roar of struggling life, 
The terrors and compunctions of our souls, 
As saints with lions, — we who are not saints, 
And have no heavenly lordship in our stare 
To awe them backward. Ay, we are forced, so pent, 
To judge the whole too partially . . . confound 
Conclusions. Is there any common phrase 
Significant, with the adverb heard alone. 
The verb being absent, and the pronoun out ? 
But we, distracted in the roar of life. 
Still insolently at God's adverb snatch, 
And bruit against him that his thought is void. 
His meaning hopeless, — cry, that everywhere 
The government is slipping from his hand, 
Unless some other Christ (say Romney Leigh) 
Come up and toil and moil and change the world, 
Because the First has proved inadequate. 
However we talk bigly of his work 
And piously of his person. We blaspheme 
At last, to finish our doxology. 
Despairing on the earth for which he died." 

'' So now," I asked, "you have more hope of men ? " 

" I hope," he answered. " I am come to think 
That God will have his work done, as you said, 
And that we need not be disturbed too much 
For Romney Leigh or others having failed 



AURORA LEIGH. 303 

With this or that quack nostrum, — recipes 

For keeping summits by annulling depths, 

For wrestling with luxurious lounging sleeves. 

And acting heroism without a scratch. 

We fail, — what then ? Aurora, if I smiled 

To see you, in your lovely morning pride. 

Try on the poet's wreath which suits the noon, 

(Sweet cousin, walls must get the weather-stain 

Before they grow the ivy), certainly 

I stood myself there worthier of contempt. 

Self rated, in disastrous arrogance, 

As competent to sorrow for mankind 

And even their odds. A man may well despair, 

Who counts himself so needful to success. 

I failed : I throw the remedy back on God, 

And sit down here beside you, in good hope." 

" And yet take heed," I answered, " lest we lean 

Too dangerously on the other side. 

And so fail twice. Be sure, no earnest work 

Of any honest creature, howbeit weak, 

Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much 

It is not gathered as a grain of sand 

To enlarge the sum of human action used 

For carrying out God's end. No creature works 

So ill, observe, that therefore he's cashiered. 

The honest earnest man must stand and work, 

The woman also : otherwise she drops 

At once below the dignity of man. 

Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work. 

Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease." 

He cried " True. After Adam, work was curse : 
The natural creature labors, sweats, and frets, 



304 AURORA LEIGH. 

But, after Christ, work turns to privilege, 
And henceforth, one with our humanity, 
The Six-day Worker, working still in us. 
Has called us freely to work on with him 
In high companionship. So, happiest ! 
I count that heaven itself is only work 
To a surer issue. Let us work, indeed, 
But no more work as Adam, nor as Leigh 
Erewhile, as if the only man on earth. 
Responsible for all the thistles blown. 
And tigers couchant, struggling in amaze 
Against disease and winter, snarling on 
Forever that the world's not paradise. 

cousin, let us be content, in work. 

To do the thing we can, and not presume 
To fret because it's little. 'Twill employ 
Seven men they say to make a perfect pin ; 
Who makes the head, content to miss the point ; 
Who makes the point, agreed to leave the join : 
And if a man should cry, ' I want a pin. 
And I must make it straightway, head and point,' 
His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. 
Seven men to a pin, and not a man too much. 
Seven generations, haply, to this world. 
To right it visibly a finger's breadth. 
And mend its rents a little. Oh, to storm 
And say, ' This world here is intolerable ; 

1 will not eat this corn, nor drink this wine, 
Nor love this woman, flinging her my soul 
Without a bond for't as a lover should. 
Nor use the generous leave of happiness 
As not too good for using generously ' — 
(Since virtue kindles at the touch of joy. 
Like a man's cheek laid on a woman's hand. 



AURORA LEIGH. 305 

And God, who knows it, looks for quick returns 
From joys) — to stand and claim to have a life 
Beyond the bounds of the individual man, 
And raze all personal cloisters of the soul 
To build up public stores and magazines, 
As if God's creatures otherwise were lost, 
The builder surely saved by any means ! 
To think, — I have a pattern on my nail, 
And I will carve the world new after it. 
And solve so these hard social questions, nay. 
Impossible social questions, since their roots 
Strike deep in evil's own existence here. 
Which God permits because the question's hard 
To abolish evil nor attaint free-will. 
Ay, hard to God, but not to Romney Leigh ; 
For Romney has a pattern on his nail 
(Whatever may be lacking on the Mount), 
And, not being overnice to separate 
What's element from what's convention, hastes 
By line on line to draw you out a world. 
Without your help indeed, unless you take 
His yoke upon you, and will learn of him. 
So much he has to teach ! — so good a world, 
The same the whole creation's groaning for ! 
No rich nor poor, no gain nor loss nor stint, 
No pottage in it able to exclude 
A brother's birthright, and no right of birth, 
The pottage, — both secured to every man, 
And perfect virtue dealt out like the rest 
Gratuitously, with the soup at six. 
To whoso does not seek it." 

" Softly, sir," 
I interrupted. " I had a cousin once 
I held in reverence. If he strained too wide, 



306 AURORA LEIGH. 



It was not to take honor, but give help. 

The gesture was heroic. If his hand 

Accomplished nothing . . . (well, it is not proved) 

That empty hand thrown impotently out 

Were sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven. 

Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in 

And keeps the scythe's glow on it. Pray you, then, 

For my sake merely, use less bitterness 

In speaking of my cousin." 

" Ah," he said, 
" Aurora ! when the prophet beats the ass, 
The angel intercedes." He shook his head. 
" And yet to mean so well, and fail so foul, 
Expresses ne'er another beast than man : 
The antithesis is human. Hearken, dear : 
There's too much abstract willing, purposing, 
In this poor world. We talk by aggregates, 
And think by systems, and, being used to face 
Our evils in statistics, are inclined 
To cap them with unreal remedies 
Drawn out in haste on the other side the slate." 

"That's true," I answered, fain to throw up thought, 

And make a game of 't. " Yes, we generalize 

Enough to please you. If we pray at all. 

We pray no longer for our daily bread, 

But next centenary's harvests. If we give, 

Our cup of water is not tendered till 

We lay down pipes and found a company 

With branches. Ass or angel, 'tis the same : 

A woman cannot do the thing she ought, 

Which means whatever perfect thing she can, 

In life, in art, in science, but she fears 

To let the perfect action take her part, 



AURORA LEIGH. 307 



And rest there : she must prove what she can do 
Before she does it, prate of woman's rights, 
Of woman's mission, woman's function, till 
The men (who are prating, too, on their side) cry, 
' A woman's function plainly is ... to talk.' 
Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed : 
They cannot hear each other talk." 

" And you, 
An artist, judge so ? " 

" I, an artist, yes. 
Because, precisely, I'm an artist, sir. 
And woman, if another sate in sight, 
I'd whisper, — ' Soft, my sister ! not a word ! 
By speaking we prove only we can speak. 
Which he, the man here, never doubted. What 
He doubts is, whether we can do the thing 
With decent grace we've not yet done at all. 
Now, do it ; bring your statue, — you have room ! 
He'll see it even by the starlight here ; 
And if 'tis e'er so little like the god 
Who looks out from the marble silently 
Along the track of his own shining dart 
Through the dusk of ages, there's no need to speak : 
The universe shall henceforth speak for you. 
And witness, ' She who did this thing was born 
To do it, — claims her license in her work.' " 
And so wdth more works. Whoso cures the plague. 
Though twice a \voman, shall be called a leech ; 
Who rights a land's finances is excused 
For touching coppers, though her hands be white, — 
But we, we talk ! " 

" It is the age's mood," 
He said : " we boast, and do not. We put up 
Hostelry signs where'er we lodge a day, 



308 AURORA LEIGH. 

Some red colossal cow with mighty paps 
A C}-clops' fingers could not strain to milk, 
Then bring out presently our saucerful 
Of curds. We want more quiet in our works, 
More knowledge of the bounds in which we work, 
More knowledge that each individual man 
Remains an Adam to the general race, 
Constrained to see, like Adam, that he keep 
His personal state's condition honestly. 
Or vain all thoughts of his to help the world, 
Which still must be developed from its one^ 
If bettered in its many. We indeed. 
Who think to lay it out new like a park, — 
We take a work on us which is not man's ; 
For God alone sits far enough above 
To speculate so largely. None of us 
(Not R.omney Leigh) is mad enough to say, 
We'll have a grove of oaks upon that slope. 
And sink the need of acorns. Government, 
If veritable and lawful, is not given 
By imposition of the foreign hand. 
Nor chosen from a pretty pattern-book 
Of some domestic idealogue who sits 
And coldly chooses empire, where as well- 
He might republic. Y Genuine government 
Is but the expression of a nation, good 
Or less good, even as all society, 
Howe'er unequal, monstrous, crazed, and cursed. 
Is but the expression of men's single lives. 
The loud sum of the silent units. What, 
We'd change the aggregate, and yet retain 
Each separate figure ? whom do we cheat by that ? 
Now, not even Romney.";\; 

" Cousin, you are sad. 



AURORA LEIGH. 309 



Did all your social labor at Leigh Hall 
And elsewhere come to naught, then ? " 

" It was enough," 
He answered mildly. " There is room indeed 
For statues still, in this large world of God's, 
But not for vacuums : so I am not sad, — 
Not sadder than is good for what I am. 
My vain phalanstery dissolved itself ; 
My men and women of disordered lives, 
I brought in orderly to dine and sleep, 
Broke up those waxen masks I made them wear. 
With fierce contortions of the natural face, 
And cursed me for my tyrannous constraint 
In forcing crooked creatures to live straight, 
And set the country hounds upon my back 
To bite and tear me for my wicked deed 
Of trying to do good without the church, 
Or even the squires, Aurora. Do you mind 
Your ancient neighbors ? The great book-club teems 
With 'sketches,' 'summaries,' and 'last tracts,' but twelve. 
On socialistic troublers of close bonds 
Betwixt the generous rich and grateful poor. 
The vicar preached from ' Revelation ' (till 
The doctor woke), and found me with ' the frogs ' 
On three successive Sundays ; ay, and stopped 
To weep a little (for he's getting old) 
That such perdition should o'ertake a man 
Of such fair acres, — in the parish, too ! 
He printed his discourses ' by request ; ' 
And, if your book shall sell as his did, then 
Your verses are less good than I suppose. 
The women of the neighborhood subscribed, 
And sent me a copy bound in scarlet silk. 



3IO AURORA LEIGH. 



Tooled edges, blazoned with the arms of Leigh : 
I own that touched me." 

"What, the pretty ones? 
Poor Romney ! " 

" Otherwise the effect was small, 
I had my windows broken once or twice 
By liberal peasants naturally incensed 
At such a vexer of Arcadian peace. 
Who would not let men call their wives their own 
To kick like Britons, and made obstacles 
When things went smoothly, as a baby drugged, 
Toward freedom and starvation, bringing down 
The wicked London tavern-thieves and drabs 
To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves 
With mended morals, quotha, fine new lives ! — 
My windows paid for't. I was shot at once. 
By an active poacher who had hit a hare 
From the other barrel (tired of springeing game 
So long upon my acres, undisturbed. 
And restless for the country's virtue ; yet 
He missed me), ay, and pelted very oft 
In riding through the village. ' There he goes, 
Who'd drive away our Christian gentlefolks, 
To catch us undefended in the trap 
He bates with poisonous cheese, and locks us up 
In that pernicious prison of Leigh Hall 
With all his murderers ! Give another name. 
And say Leigh Hell, and burn it up with fire.' 
And so they did, at last, Aurora." 

" Did ? " 

" You never heard it, cousin ? Vincent's news 
Came stinted, then." 

" They did ? They burnt Leigh Hall ? 



AURORA LEIGH, 31 1 

" You're sorry, dear Aurora ? Yes, indeed, 

They did it perfectly : a thorough work, 

And not a failure, this time. Let us grant 

'Tis somewhat easier, though, to burn a house 

Than build a system ; yet that's easy, too — 

In a dream. Books, pictures, ay, the pictures ! What, 

You think your dear Vandykes would give them pause ? 

Our proud ancestral Leighs, with those peaked beards. 

Our bosoms white as foam thrown up on rocks 

From the old-spent wave. Such calm, defiant looks 

They flared up with ! now never more to twit 

The bones in the family vault with ugly death. 

Not one was rescued, save the Lady Maud, 

Who threw you down, that morning you were born, 

The undeniable lineal mouth and chin. 

To wear forever for her gracious sake ; 

For which good deed I saved her : the rest went : 

And you, you're sorry, cousin. Well, for me. 

With all my phalansterians safely out 

(Poor hearts, they helped the burners, it was said. 

And certainly a few clapped hands and yelled). 

The ruin did not hurt me as it might ; 

As when, for instance, I was hurt one day, 

A certain letter being destroyed. In fact, 

To see the great house flare so . . . oaken floors 

Our fathers made so fine with rushes once. 

Before our mothers furbished them with trains, 

Carved wainscoats, panelled walls (the favorite slide 

For draining off a martyr — or a rogue) 

The echoing galleries, half a half-mile long, 

And all the various stairs that took you up, 

And took you down, and took you round about 

Upon their slippery darkness, recollect. 

All helping to keep up one blazing jest ; 



312 AURORA LEIGH. 

The flames through all the casements pushing forth 

Like red-hot devils crinkled into snakes, 

All signifying, ' Look you, Romney Leigh, 

We save the people from your saving, here, 

Yet so as by fire ! we make a pretty show 

Besides, — and that's the best you've ever done.' 

— To see this, almost moved myself to clap. 

The ' vale et plaude ' came too with effect. 

When in the roof fell, and the fire that paused, 

Stunned momently beneath the stroke of slates 

And tumbling rafters, rose at once and roared, 

And, wrapping the whole house (which disappeared 

In a mounting whirlwind of dilated flame). 

Blew upward straight its drift of fiery chaff 

In the face of heaven . . . which blenched, and ran up higher.' 

*' Poor Romney ! " 

" Sometimes when I dream." he said, 
" I hear the silence after, 'twas so still. 
For all those wild beasts, yelling, cursing round, 
Were suddenly silent while you counted five, — 
So silent that you heard a young bird fall 
From the top-nest in the neighboring rookery, 
Through edging over-rashly toward the light. 
The old rooks had already fled too far 
To hear the screech they fled with, though you saw 
Some flying still, like scatterings of dead leaves 
In autumn-gusts, seen dark against the sky, — 
All flying, ousted, like the house of Leigh." 

" Dear Romney ! " 

" Evidently 'twould have been 
A fine sight for a poet, sweet, like you. 
To make the verse blaze after. I myself. 




' With one stone stair, symbolic of m}- life, 
Ascending, winding, leading up to nought." — Page 313. 



AURORA LEIGH. 313 



Even I, felt something 111 the grand old trees, 

Which stood that moment like brute Druid gods 

Amazed upon the rim of ruin, where. 

As into a blackened socket, the great fire 

Had dropped, still throwing up splinters now and then 

To show them gray with all their centuries, 

Left there to witness that on such a day 

The house went out." 

" Ah ! " 

" While you counted five, 
I seemed to feel a little like a Leigh ; 
But then it passed, Aurora. A child cried. 
And I had enough to think of what to do 
With all those houseless wretches in the dark. 
And ponder where they'd dance the next time, — they 
Who had burnt the viol." 

" Did you think of that ? 
Who burns his viol will not dance, I know. 
To cymbals, Romney." 

*' O my sweet, sad voice," 
He cried, — " O voice that speaks and overcomes ! 
The sun is silent ; but Aurora speaks." 

" Alas ! " I said, " I speak I know not what : 
I'm back in childhood, thinking as a child, 
A foolish fancy — will it make you smile ? — 
I shall not from the window of my room 
Catch sight of those old chimneys any more." 

" No more," he answered. " If you pushed one day 
Through all the green hills to our fathers' house. 
You'd come upon a great charred circle, where 
The patient earth was singed an acre round, 
With one stone stair, symbolic of my life, 



314 AURORA LEIGH. 

Ascending, winding, leading up to naught. 
'Tis worth a poet's seeing. Will you go ? " 

I made no answer. Had I any right 

To weep with this man, that I dared to speak ? 

A woman stood between his soul and mine, 

And waved us off from touching evermore. 

With those unclean white hands of hers. Enough. 

We had burnt our viols and were silent. 

So, 
The silence lengthened till it pressed. I spoke 
To breathe, — "I think you were ill afterward." 

" More ill," he answered, " had been scarcely ill. 

I hoped this feeble fumbling at life's knot 

Might end concisely ; but I failed to die, 

As formerly I failed to live, and thus 

Grew willing, having tried all other ways, 

To tr}' just God's. Humility's so good 

When pride's impossible. Mark us, how we make 

Our virtues, cousin, from our worn-out sins, 

Which smack of them from henceforth. , Is it right, 

For instance, to v/ed here while you love there ? 

And yet, because a man sins once, the sin 

Cleaves to him in necessity to sin. 

That if he sin not so^ to damn himself 

He sins so., to damn others with himself : 

And thus to wed here, loving there, becomes 

A duty. Virtue buds a dubious leaf 

Round mortal brows : your ivy's better, dear. 

— Yet she, 'tis certain, is my very wife. 

The very lamb left mangled by the wolves 

Through my own bad shepherding : and could I choose 

But take her on my shoulder past this stretch 



AURORA LEIGH, 315 

Of rough, uneasy wilderness, poor lamb, 

Poor child, poor child ? Aurora, my beloved, 

I will not vex you any more to-night ; 

But, having spoken what I came to say, 

The rest shall please you. What she can in me, — 

Protection, tender liking, freedom, ease, — 

She shall have surely, liberally, for her 

And hers, Aurora. Small amends they'll make 

For hideous evils which she had not known 

Except by me, and for this imminent loss, 

This forfeit presence of a gracious friend, 

Which also she must forfeit for my sake. 

Since . . . drop your hand in mine a moment, sweet. 

We're parting ! — Ah, my snowdrop, what a touch. 

As if the wind had swept it off ! you grudge 

Your gelid sweetness on my palm but so, 

A moment ? angry, that I could not bear 

You . . . speaking, breathing, living, side by side 

With some one called my wife . . . and live myself ? 

Nay, be not cruel : you must understand ! 

Your lightest footfall on a floor of mine 

Would shake the house, my lintel being uncrossed 

'Gainst angels : henceforth it is night with me. 

And so, henceforth, I put the shutters up : 

Auroras must not come to spoil my dark." 

He smiled so feebly, with an empty hand 

Stretched sideway from me — as indeed he looked 

To any one but me to give him help ; 

And while the moon came suddenly out full. 

The double-rose of our Italian moons. 

Sufficient plainly for the heaven and earth, 

(The stars struck dumb, and washed away in dews 

Of golden glory, and the mountains steeped 

In divine languor) he, the man, appeared 



3l6 AURORA LEIGH, 



So pale and patient, like the marble man 

A sculptor puts his personal sadness in 

To join his grandeur of ideal thought — 

As if his mallet struck me from my height 

Of passionate indignation, I who had risen 

Pale, doubting paused. . . . Was Romney mad indeed ? 

Had all this wrong of heart made sick the brain ? 

Then quiet, with a sort of tremulous pride, 

" Go, cousin," I said coldly : " a farewell 

Was sooner spoken 'twixt a pair of friends 

In those old days than seems to suit you now. 

Howbeit, since then, I've writ a book or two, 

I'm somewhat dull still in the manly art 

Of phrase and metaphrase. Why, any man 

Can carve a score of white Loves out of snow. 

As Buonarroti in my Florence there. 

And set them on the wall in some safe shade, — 

As safe, sir, as your marriage ! very good ; 

Though if a woman took one from the ledge 

To put it on the table by her flowers, 

And let it mind her of a certain friend, 

'Twould drop at once (so better), would not bear 

Her nail-mark even, where she took it up 

A little tenderly (so best, I say) : 

For me, I would not touch the fragile thing 

And risk to spoil it half an hour before 

The sun shall shine to melt it : leave it there. 

I'm plain at speech, direct in purpose : when 

I speak, you'll take the meaning as it is. 

And not allow for puckerings in the silk 

By clever stitches. I'm a woman, sir, 

And use the woman's figures naturally. 

As you the male license. So, I wish you well. 



AURORA LEIGH. 3^7 



I'm simply sorry for the griefs you've had, 
And not for your sake only, but mankind's. 
This race is never grateful : from the first, 
One fills their cup at supper with pure wine, 
Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge 
In vinegar and gall." 

" If gratefuller," 
He murmured, " by so much less pitiable ! 
God's self would never have come down to die, 
Could man have thanked him for it." 

" Happily 
'Tis patent, that, whatever," I resumed, 
" You suffered from this thanklessness of men, 
You sink no more than Moses' bulrush boat 
When once relieved of Moses ; for you're light, 
You're light, my cousin ! which is well for you. 
And manly. For myself — now mark me, sir, 
They burnt Leigh Hall ; but if, consummated 
To devils, heightened beyond Lucifers, 
They had burnt instead a star or two of those 
We saw above there just a moment back. 
Before the moon abolished them, destroyed 
And riddled them in ashes through a sieve 
On the head of the foundering universe — what then .'' 
If you and I remained still you and I, 
It could not shift our places as mere friends, 
Nor render decent you should toss a phrase 
Beyond the point of actual feeling ! — Nay, 
You shall not interrupt me : as you said, 
We're parting. Certainly, not once nor twice 
To-night you've mocked me somewhat, or yourself, 
And I, at least have not deserved it so 
That I should meet it unsurprised. But now. 
Enough. We're parting . . . Parting. Cousin Leigh, 



3l8 AURORA LEIGH. 

I wish you well through all the acts of life 

And life's relations, wedlock not the least, 

And it shall 'please me,' in your words, to know 

You yield your wife protection, freedom, ease. 

And very tender liking. May you live 

So happy with her, Romney, that your friends 

Shall praise her for it. Meantime some of us 

Are wholly dull in keeping ignorant 

Of what she has suffered by you, and what debt 

Of sorrow your rich love sits down to pay : 

But, if 'tis sweet for love to pay its debt, 

'Tis sweeter still for love to give its gift : 

And you, be liberal in the sweeter way ; 

You can, I think. At least as touches me, 

You owe her. Cousin Romney, no amends. 

She is not used to hold my gown so fast 

You need entreat her now to let it go : 

The lady never was a friend of mine. 

Nor capable — I thought you knew as much — 

Of losing for your sake so poor a prize 

As such a worthless friendship. Be content, 

Good cousin, therefore, both for her and you ! 

I'll never spoil your dark, nor dull your noon, 

Nor vex you when you're merry or at rest : 

You shall not need to put a shutter up 

To keep out this Aurora, though your north 

Can make Auroras which vex nobody. 

Scarce known from night, I fancied ! let me add, 

My larks fly higher than some windows. Well, 

You've read your Leighs. Indeed 'twould shake a house. 

If such as I came in with outstretched hand 

Still warm and thrilling from the clasp of one . . . 

Of one we know ... to acknowledge, palm to palm, 

As mistress there, the Lady Waldemar." 



AURORA LEIGH. 3^9 

" Now God be with us ! " . . . with a sudden clash 
Of voice he interrupted. " What name's that ? 
You spoke a name, Aurora." 

" Pardon me : 
I would that, Romney, I could name your wife 
Nor wound you, yet be w^orthy." 

" Are we mad ? " 
He echoed — wife ! mine ! Lady Waldemar ! 
I think you said my wife." He sprang to his feet, 
And threw his noble head back toward the moon. 
As one who swims against a stormy sea. 
Then laughed with such a helpless, hopeless scorn, 
I stood and trembled. 

" May God judge me so ! " 
He said at last, — "I came convicted here. 
And humbled sorely, if not enough. I came, 
Because this woman from her crystal soul 
Had- shown me something which a man calls light ; 
Because, too, formerly, I sinned by her. 
As then and ever since I have by God, 
Through arrogance of nature, — though I loved . . „ 
Whom best I need not say, since that is writ 
Too plainly in the book of my misdeeds : 
And thus I came here to abase myself. 
And fasten, kneeling, on her regent brows 
A garland which I startled thence one day 
Of her beautiful June youth. But here again 
I'm baffled, fail in my abasement as 
My aggrandizement : there's no room left for me 
At any woman's foot who misconceives 
My nature, purpose, possible actions. What ! 
Are you the Aurora who made large my dreams 
To frame your greatness ? you conceive so small ? 
You stand so less than woman through being more. 



320 AURORA LEIGH. 

And lose your natural instinct (like a beast) 

Through intellectual culture ? since indeed, 

I do not think that any common she 

Would dare adopt such monstrous forgeries 

For the legible life-signature of such 

As I, with all my blots, with all my blots ! 

At last, then, peerless cousin, we are peers ; 

At last we're even. Ah, you've left your height, 

And here upon my level we take hands. 

And here I reach you to forgive you, sweet, 

And that's a fall, Aurora. Long ago 

You seldom understood me ; but before 

I could not blame you. Then, you only seemed 

So high above, you could not see below ; 

But now I breathe, — but now I pardon ! Nay, 

We're parting. Dearest, men have burnt my house, 

Maligneti my motives ; but not one, I swear, 

Has wronged my soul as this Aurora has. 

Who called the Lady Waldemar my wife." 

" Not married to her ! Yet you said "... 

" Again ? 
Nay, read the lines " (he held a letter out) 
" She sent you through me." 

By the moonlight there 
I tore the meaning out with passionate haste 
Much rather than I read it. Thus it ran. 



AURORA LEIGH. 32 1 



NINTH BOOK. 

Even thus. I pause to write it out at length, 
The letter of the Lady Waldemar. 

" I prayed your Cousin Leigh to take you this ; 

He says he'll do it. After years of love, 

Or what is called so, when a woman frets 

And fools ujDon one string of a man's name, 

And fingers it forever till it breaks, 

He may perhaps do for her such a thing, 

And she accept it without detriment, 

Although she should not love him any more. 

And I, who do not love him, nor love you. 

Nor you, Aurora, choose you shall repent 

Your most ungracious letter, and confess. 

Constrained by his convictions (he's convinced), 

You've wronged me foully. Are you made so ill, 

You woman, to impute such ill to me ? 

We both had mothers, — lay in their bosom once. 

And, after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh, 

For proving to myself that there are things 

I would not do, — not for my life, nor him, — 

Though something I have somewhat overdone; 

For instance, when I went to see the gods 

One morning on Olympus, with a step 

That shook the thunder from a certain cloud. 

Committing myself vilely. Could I think 

The Muse I pulled my heart out from my breast 

To soften had herself a sort of heart, 

And loved my mortal ? He at least loved her, 

I heard him say so : 'twas my recompense, 

When, watching at his bedside fourteen days, 



322 AURORA LEIGH. 

He broke out ever, like a flame at whiles 

Between the heats of fever, ' Is it thou ? 

Breathe closer, sweetest mouth ! ' And when, at last 

The fever gone, the wasted face extinct, 

As if it irked him much to know me there, 

He said, ' 'Twas kind, 'twas good, 'twas womanly ' 

(And fifty praises to excuse no love), 

' But was the picture safe he had ventured for ? ' 

And then, half wondering, — ' I have loved her well 

Although she could not love me.' ' Say instead,' 

I answered, 'she does love you.' 'Twas my turn 

To rave : I would have married him so changed, 

Although the world had jeered me properly 

For taking up with Cupid at his worst. 

The silver quiver worn off on his hair. 

' No, no,' he murmured, ' no, she loves me not ; 

Aurora Leigh does better. Bring her book 

And read it softly. Lady Waldemar, 

Until I thank your friendship more for that 

Than even for harder service.' So I read 

Your book, Aurora, for an hour that day : 

I kept its pauses, marked its emphasis ; 

My voice, empaled upon its hooks of rhyme. 

Not once would writhe, nor quiver, nor revolt : 

I read on calmly, — calmly shut it up, 

Observing, ' There's some merit in the book ; 

And yet the merit in't is thrown away. 

As chances still with women if we write 

Or write not : we want string to tie our flowers, 

So drop them as we walk, which serves to show 

The way we went. Good-morning, Mister Leigh ; 

You'll find another reader the next time. 

A woman who does better than to love, 

I hate ; she will do nothing very well : 



AURORA LEIGH. ^27, 

Male poets are preferable, straining less, 

And teaching more.' I triumphed o'er you both, 

And left him. 

" When I saw him afterward, 
I had read your shameful letter, and my heart, 
He came with health recovered, strong, though pale, — 
Lord Howe and he, a courteous pair of friends, — 
To say what men dare say to women, when 
Their debtors. But I stopped them with a word, 
And proved I had never trodden such a road 
To carry so much dirt upon my shoe. 
Then, putting into it something of disdain, 
I asked forsooth his pardon, and my own, 
For having done no better than to love. 
And that not wisely, though 'twas long ago, 
And had been mended radically since. 
I told him, as I tell you now. Miss Leigh, 
And proved I took some trouble, for his sake 
(Because I knew he did not love the girl). 
To spoil my hands with working in the stream 
Of that poor bubbling nature, till she went. 
Consigned to one I trusted (my own maid 
Who once had lived full five months in my house, 
Dressed hair superbly) with a lavish purse 
To carry to Australia where she had left 
A husband, said she. If the creature lied. 
The mission failed, — we all do fail and lie 
More or less, — and I'm sorry, which is all 
Expected from us when we fail the most. 
And go to church to own it. What I meant 
Was just the best for him, and me, and her . . . 
Best even for Marian ! — I am sorry for't. 
And very sorry. Yet my creature said 
She saw her stop to speak in Oxford Street 



324 AURORA LEIGH. 

To one ... no matter ! I had sooner cut 

My hand off (though 'twere kissed the hour before, 

And promised a duke's troth-ring for the next) 

Than crush her silly head with so much wTong. 

Poor child ! I would have mended it with gold, 

Until it gleamed like St. Sophia's dome 

When all the faithful troop to morning prayer : 

But he, he nipped the bud of such a thought 

With that cold Leigh look which I fancied once, 

And broke in, ' Henceforth she was called his wife. 

His wife required no succor : he was bound 

To Florence to resume this broken bond ; 

Enough so. Both were happy, he and Howe, 

To acquit me of the heaviest charge of all ' — 

— At which I shot my tongue against my fly, 

And struck him : * Would he carry, he Avas just, 

A letter from me to Aurora Leigh, 

And ratify from his authentic mouth 

My answer to her accusation V — ' Yes, 

If such a letter were prepared in time.' 

' — He's just, your cousin ; ay, abhorrently : 

He'd wash his hands in blood to keep them clean. 

And so, cold, courteous, a mere gentleman, 

He bowed, we parted. 

" Parted. Face no more. 
Voice no more, love no more ! wiped wholly out, 
Like some ill scholar's scrawl from heart and slate ; 
Ay, spit on, and so wiped out utterly, 
By some coarse scholar ! I have been too coarse. 
Too human. Have we business, in our rank. 
With blood i' the veins ? I will have henceforth none, 
Not even to keep the color of my lip. 
A rose is pink and pretty without blood ; 
Why not a woman ? When we've played in vain 



A URORA LEIGH, 325 

The game, to adore, — we have resources still, 

And can play on, at leisure, being adored : 

Here's Smith, already swearing at my feet 

That I'm the typic she. Away with Smith! — 

Smith smacks of Leigh, — and henceforth I'll admit 

No socialists within three crinolines. 

To live and have his being. But for you, 

Though insolent your letter and absurd. 

And though I hate you frankly, — take my Smith ! 

For when you have seen this famous marriage tied, 

A most unspotted Erie to a noble Leigh 

(His love astray on one he should not love), 

Howbeit you may not want his love, beware, 

You'll want some comfort. So I leave you Smith ; 

Take Smith! — he talks Leigh's subjects, somewhat worse; 

Adopts a thought of Leigh's and dwindles it ; 

Goes leagues beyond, to be no inch behind ; 

Will mind you of him, as a shoestring may 

Of a man : and women when they are made like you 

Grow tender to a shoestring, footprint even. 

Adore averted shoulders in a glass. 

And memories of what, present once, was loathed. 

And yet you loathed not Romney, though you played 

At ' fox-and-goose ' about him with your soul : 

Pass over fox, you rub out fox, — ignore 

A feeling, you eradicate it — the act's 

Identical. 

" I wish you joy, Miss Leigh, 
You've made a happy marriage for your friend, 
And all the honor, well-assorted love, 
Derives from you who love him, whom he loves ! 
You need not wish me joy to think of it, 
I have so much. Observe, Aurora Leigh, 
Your droop of eyelid is the same as his, 



326 AURORA LEIGH. 

And but for you I might have won his love, 

And to you I have shown my naked heart ; 

For which three things, I hate, hate, hate you. Hush ! 

Suppose a fourth, — I cannot choose but think 

That, with him, I were virtuouser than you 

Without him : so I hate you from this gulf 

And hollow of my soul which opens out 

To what, except for you, had been my heaven, 

And is, instead, a place to curse by ! Love." 

An active kind of curse. I stood there cursed. 
Confounded. I had seized and caught the sense 
Of the letter, with its twenty stinging snakes. 
In a moment's sweep of eyesight, and I stood 
Dazed. " Ah ! not married." 

" You mistake," he said, 
" I'm married. Is not Marian Erie my wife ? 
As God sees things, I have a wife and child , 
And I, as I'm a man who honors God, 
Am here to claim them as my child and wife." 

I felt it hard to breathe, much less to speak. 
Nor word of mine was needed. Some one else 
Was there for answering. " Romney," she began, 
" My great good angel, Romney." 

Then, at first, 
I knew that Marian Erie was beautiful. 
She stood there, still and pallid as a saint, 
Dilated, like a saint in ecstasy 
As if the floating moonshine interposed 
Betwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her up 
To float upon it. " I had left my child, 
Who sleeps," she said, " and, having drawn this way, 
I heard you speaking . . . friend ! — Confirm me now. 



AURORA LEIGH. 327 



You take this Marian, such as wicked men 
Have made her, for your honorable wife ? " 

The thrilHng, solemn, proud, pathetic voice. 

He stretched his arms out toward that thrilling voice, 

As if to draw it on to his embrace. 

— "I take her as God made her, and as men 
Must fail to unmake her, for my honored wife." 

She never raised her eyes, nor took a step, 
But stood there in her place, and spoke again. 

— " You take this, Marian's child, which is her shame, 
In sight of men and women, for your child. 

Of whom you will not ever feel ashamed ? " 

The thrilling, tender, proud, pathetic voice. 

He stepped on toward it, still with outstretched arms, 

As if to quench upon his breast that voice. 

— " May God so father me as I do him, 
And so forsake me as I let him feel 

He's orphaned haply. Here I take the child 

To share my cup, to slumber on my knee. 

To play his loudest gambol at my foot, 

To hold my finger in the public ways, 

Till none shall need inquire, ' Whose child is this ? ' 

The gesture saying so tenderly, ' My own.' " 

She stood a moment silent in her place ; 
Then turning toward me, very slow and cold, 

— " And you, — what say you ? will you blame me much, 
If, careful for that outcast child of mine, 

I catch this hand that's stretched to me and him. 
Nor dare to leave him friendless in the world 
Where men have stoned me.? Have I not the right 



328 AURORA LEIGH. 

To take so mere an aftermath from life, 

Else found so wholly bare ? Or is it wrong 

To let your cousin, for a generous bent. 

Put out his ungloved fingers among briers 

To set a tumbling bird's nest somewhat straight ? 

You will not tell him, though we're innocent, 

We are not harmless . . . and that both our harms 

Will stick to his good, smooth, noble life like burrs. 

Never to drop off, though he shakes the cloak ? 

You've been my friend : you will not now be his ? 

You've known him that he's worthy of a friend, 

And you're his cousin, lady, after all. 

And therefore more than free to take his part, 

Explaining, since the nest is surely spoilt, 

And Marian what you know her, — though a wife. 

The world would hardly understand her case 

Of being just hurt and honest ; while for him, 

'Twould ever twit him with his bastard child 

And married harlot. Speak while yet there's time. 

You would not stand and let a good man's dog 

Turn round and rend him, because his, and reared 

Of a generous breed ; and will you let his act. 

Because it's generous ? Speak. I'm bound to you. 

And I'll be bound by only you in this." 

The thrilling, solemn voice, so passionless. 

Sustained, yet low, without a rise or fall, 

As one who had authority to speak. 

And not as Marian. 

I looked up to feel 
If God stood near me, and beheld his heaven 
As blue as Aaron's priestly robe appeared 
To Aaron when he took it off to die. 
And then I spoke, — " Accept the gift, I say, 
My sister Marian, and be satisfied. 



AURORA LEIGH. ' 329 



The hand that gives has still a soul behind 
Which will not let it quail for having given, 
Though foolish worldlings talk they know not what 
Of what they know not. Romney's strong enough 
For this : do you be strong to know he's strong. 
He stands on right's side : never flinch for him, 
As if he stood on the other. You'll be bound 
By me ? I am a woman of repute ; 
No fly-blow gossip ever specked my life ; 
My name is clean and open as this hand, 
Whose glove there's not a man dares blab about, 
As if he had touched it freely. Here's my hand 
To clasp your hand, my Marian, owned as pure 1 — 
As pure, as I'm a woman and a Leigh ; 
And, as I'm both, I'll witness to the world 
That Romney Leigh is honored in his choice 
Who chooses Marian for his honored wife." 

Her broad wild woodland eyes shot out a light ; 
Her smile was wonderful for rapture. " Thanks, 
My great Aurora." Forward then she sprang 
And, dropping her impassioned spaniel head 
With all its brown abandonment of curls 
On Romney's feet, we heard the kisses drawn 
Through sobs upon the foot, upon the ground — 
" O Romney ! O my angel ! O unchanged ! 
Though since we've parted I have passed the grave 
But death itself could only better theey 
Not change thee. Thee I do not thank at all : 
I but thank God who made thee what thou art, 
So wholly godlike." 

When he tried in vain 
To raise her to his embrace, escaping thence 
As any leaping fawn from a huntsman's grasp, 



330 AURORA LEIGH. 

She bounded off, and 'lighted beyond reach, 

Before him, with a staglike majesty 

Of soft, serene defiance, as she knew 

He could not touch her, so was tolerant 

He had cared to try. She stood there with her great 

Drowned eyes, and dripping cheeks, and strange sweet smile 

That lived through all, as if one held a light 

Across a waste of waters, — shook her head 

To keep some thoughts down deeper in her soul, — ■ 

Then, white and tranquil like a summer-cloud, 

Which, having rained itself to a tardy peace, 

Stands still in heaven as if it ruled the day. 

Spoke out again, — " Although, my generous friend, 

Since last we met and parted you're unchanged, 

And, having promised faith to Marian Erie, 

Maintain it, as she were not changed at all ; 

And though that's worthy, though that's full of balm 

To any conscious spirit of a girl 

Who once has loved you as I loved you once, — 

Yet still it will not make her ... if she's dead. 

And gone away where none can give or take 

In marriage, — able to revive, return 

And wed you, — will it, Romney ? Here's the point; 

My friend, we'll see it plainer ; you and I 

Must never, never, never join hands so. 

Nay, let me say it ; for I said it first 

To God, and placed it, rounded to an oath, 

Far, far above the moon there, at his feet. 

As surely as I wept just now at yours, — 

We never, never, never join hands so. 

And now, be patient with me : do not think 

I'm speaking from a false humility. 

The truth is, I am grown so proud with grief. 

And He has said so often through his nights 



AURORA LEIGH. 331 

And through his mornings, ' Weep a little still, 

Thou foolish Marian, because women must, 

But do not blush at all except for sin,' — 

That I, who felt myself unworthy once 

Of virtuous Romney and his high-born race, 

Have come to learn, — a woman, poor or rich, 

Despised or honored, is a human soul. 

And what her soul is, that she is herself. 

Although she should be spit upon of men, 

As is the pavement of the churches here, 

Still good enough to pray in. And being chaste 

And honest, and inclined to do the right, 

And love the truth, and live my life out green 

And smooth beneath his steps, I should not fear 

To make him thus a less uneasy time 

Than many a happier woman. Very proud 

You see me. Pardon, that I set a trap 

To hear a confirmation in your voice. 

Both yours, and yours. It is so good to know 

'Twas really God who said the same before ; 

And thus it is in heaven, that first God speaks. 

And then his angels. Oh, it does me good. 

It wipes me clean and sweet from devil's dirt. 

That Romney Leigh should think me worthy still 

Of being his true and honorable wife ! 

Henceforth I need not say, on leaving earth, 

I had no glory in it. For the rest. 

The reason's ready (master, angel, friend, 

Be patient with me) wherefore you and I 

Can never, never, never join hands so. 

I know you'll not be angry like a man 

(For 7^?/ are none) when I shall tell the truth, 

Which is, I do not love you, Romney Leigh, 

I do not love you. Ah, well ! catch my hands, 



332 AURORA LEIGH. 

Miss Leigh, and burn into my eyes ^vith yours, — 

I swear I do not love him. • Did I once ? 

'Tis said that women have been bruised to death, 

And yet, if once they loved, that love of theirs 

Could never be drained out with all their blood : 

I've heard such things and pondered. Did I indeed 

Love once ? or did I only worship } Yes, 

Perhaps, O friend, I set you up so high 

Above all actual good, or hope of good. 

Or fear of evil, all that could be mine, 

I haply set you above love itself. 

Arid out of reach of these poor woman's arms. 

Angelic Romney. What was in my thought? 

To be your slave, your help, your toy, your tool. 

To be your love ... I never thought of that. 

To give you love . . . still less. I gave you love ? 

I think I did not give you anything ; 

I was but only yours, — upon my knees. 

All yours, in soul and body, in head and heart, — 

A creature you had taken from the ground. 

Still crumbling through your fingers to your feet 

To join the dust she came from. Did I love, 

Or did I worship ? Judge, Aurora Leigh ! 

But, if indeed I loved, 'twas long ago. 

So long ! — before the sun and moon were made, 

Before the hells were open, ah, before 

I heard my child cry in the desert night, 

And knew he had no father. It may be 

I'm not as strong as other women are, 

Who, torn and crushed, are not undone from love. 

It may be I am colder than the dead. 

Who, being dead, love always. But for me. 

Once killed, this ghost of Marian loves no more. 

No more . . . except the child ... no more at all. 



AURORA LEIGH. 333 



I told your cousin, sir, tliat I was dead ; 

And now she thinks I'll get up from my grave, , 

And wear my chin-cloth for a wedding-veil. 

And glide along the churchyard like a bride. 

While all the dead keep whispering though the withes 

' You would be better in your place with us, 

You pitiful corruption ! ' At the thought, 

The damps break out on me like leprosy, 

Although I'm clean. Ay, clean as Marian Erie ! 

As Marian Leigh, I know I were not clean : 

Nor have I so much life that I should love, 

Except the child. Ah God ! I could not bear 

To see my darling on a good man's knees, 

And know by such a look, or such a sigh, 

Or such a silence, that he thought sometimes, 

* This child was fathered by some cursed wretch ' . . 

For, Romney, angels are less tender-wise 

Than God and mothers ; even you would think 

What we think never. He is ours, the child ; 

And we would sooner vex a soul in heaven 

By coupling with it the dead body's thought 

It left behind it in a last month's grave 

Than in my child see other than . . . my child. 

We only never call him fatherless 

Who has God and his mother. O my babe. 

My pretty, pretty blossom an ill wind 

Once blew upon my breast ! Can any think 

I'd have another, — one called happier, 

A fathered child, with father's love and race 

That's worn as bold and open as a smile. 

To vex my darling when he's asked his name 

And has no answer ? What ! a happier child ^ 

Than mine, my best, who laughed so loud to-night 

He could not sleep for pastime ? Nay, I swear 



334 AURORA LEIGH. 

By life and love, that if I lived like some, 

And loved like . . sotjte^ ay, loved you, Romney Leigh, 

As some love (eyes that have wept so much see clear) 

I've room for no more children in my arms, 

My kisses are all melted on one mouth, 

I would not push my darling to a stool 

To dandle babies. Here's a hand shall keep 

Forever clean without a marriage ring. 

To tend my boy until he cease to need 

One steadying finger of it, and desert 

(Not miss) his mother's lap to sit with men. 

And when I miss him (not he me) I'll come 

And say, ' Now give me some of Romney's work, — 

To help your outcast orphans of the world 

And comfort grief with grief.' For you, meantime, 

Most noble Romney, wed a noble wife. 

And open on each other your great souls : 

I need not farther bless you. If I dared 

But strain and touch her in her upper sphere 

And say, ' Come down to Romney — pay my debt ! ' 

I should be joyful with the stream of joy 

Sent through me. But the moon is in my face . . . 

I dare not — though I guess the name he loves : 

I'm learned with my studies of old days, 

Remembering how he crushed his under lip 

When some one came and spoke, or did not come : 

Aurora, I could touch her with my hand. 

And fly because I dare not." 

She was gone. 
He smiled so sternly that I spoke in haste. 
" Forgive her — she sees clearly for herself : 
Her instinct's holy." 

" / forgive ! " he said, 
" I only marvel how she sees so sure. 



AURORA LEIGH. 335 



While others "... there he paused, then hoarse, abrupt, — 

" Aurora, you forgive us, her and me ? 

For her, the thing she sees, poor loyal child, 

If once corrected by the thing I know. 

Had been unspoken, since she loves you well, 

Has leave to love you ; while for me, alas ! 

If once or twice I let my heart escape 

This night , . . remember, where hearts slip and fall 

They break beside : we're parting, — parting — ah, 

You do not love, that you should surely know 

What that word means. Forgive, be tolerant : 

It had not been, but that I felt myself 

So safe in impuissance and despair 

I could not hurt you, though I tossed my arms 

And sighed my soul out. The most utter wretch 

Will choose his postures ^vhen he comes to die, 

However in the presence of a queen ; 

And you'll forgive me some unseemly spasms 

Which meant no more than dying. Do you think 

I had ever come here in my perfect mind, 

Unless I had come here in my settled mind 

Bound Marian's, — bound to keep the bond, and give 

My name, my house, my hand, the things I could. 

To Marian ? For even / could give as much : 

Even I, affronting her exalted soul 

By a supposition that she wanted these, 

Could act the husband's coat and hat set up 

To creak i' the wind, and drive the world-crows off 

From pecking in her garden. Straw can fill 

A hole to keep out vermin. Now, at last, , 

I own heaven's angels round her life suffice 

To fight the rats of our society, 

Without this Romney. I can see it at last : 

And here is ended my pretension which 



336 AURORA LEIGH. 

The most pretended. Over-proud of course, 

Even so ! — but not so stupid . . . blind . . . that I, 

Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the world 

Has set to meditate mistaken work, — 

My dreary face against a dim blank wall 

Throughout man's natural lifetime, — could pretend 

Or wish . . . O love, I have loved you ! O my soul, 

I have lost you ! But I swear by all yourself. 

And all you might have been to me these years 

If that June morning had not failed my hope, 

I'm not so bestial to regret that day 

This night, — this night, which still to you is fair ; 

Nay, not so blind, Aurora. I attest 

Those stars above us which I cannot see." . . . 

*' You cannot "... 

" That if Heaven itself should stoop. 
Remix the lots, and give me another chance, 
I'd say, ' No other ! ' I'd record my blank. 
Aurora never should be wife of mine." 

" Not see the stars ? " 

" 'Tis worse still not to see 
To find your hand, although we're parting, dear. 
A moment let me hold it ere we part. 
And understand my last words — these at last ! — 
I would not have you thinking when I'm gone 
That Romney dared to hanker for your love 
In thought or vision, if attainable, 
(Which certainly for me it never was) 
And wished to use it for a dog to-day 
To help the blind man stumbling. God forbid 
And now I know he held you in his palm, 
And kept you open-eyed to all my faults, 



AURORA LEIGH. 337 



To save you at last from such a dreary end. 

Believe me, dear, that if I had known, like him, 

What loss was coming on me, I had done 

As well in this as he has. — Farewell you 

Who are still my light, — farewell ! How late it is ! 

I know^ that now. You've been too patient, sweet. 

I will but blow my whistle toward the lane. 

And some one comes, — the same who brought me here. 

Get in. Good-night." 

" A moment. Heavenly Christ ! 
A moment. Speak once, Romney. 'Tis not true 
I hold your hands, I look into your face — 
You see me ? " 

" No more than the blessed stars. 
Be blessed too, Aurora. Nay, my sweet. 
You tremble. Tender-hearted ! Do you mind 
Of yore, dear, how you used to cheat old John 
And let the mice out slyly from his traps. 
Until he marvelled at the soul in mice 
Which took the cheese, and left the snare ? The same 
Dear soft heart always ! 'Twas for this I grieved 
Howe's letter never reached you. Ah, you had heard 
Of illness, not the issue, not the extent, — 
My life long sick with tossings up and down, 
The sudden revulsion in the blazing house. 
The strain and struggle both of body and soul, 
Which left fire running in my veins for blood 
Scarce lacked that thunderbolt of the falling beam 
Which nicked me on the forehead as I passed 
The gallery-door with a burden. Say heaven's bolt. 
Not William Erie's, not Marian's father's, — tramp 
And poacher, whom I found for what he was, 
And, eager for her sake to rescue him, 
Forth swept from the open highw^ay of the world, 



338 AURORA LEIGH. 

Road-dust and all, till, like a woodland boar 
Ivlost naturally unwilling to be tamed. 
He notched me with his tooth. But not a word 
To Marian ! And I do not think, besides, 
He turned the tilting of the beam my way ; 
And if he laughed, as many swear, poor wretch, 
Nor he nor I supposed the hurt so deep. 
We'll hope his next laugh may be merrier, 
In a better cause." 

" Blind, Romney ? " 

" Ah, my friend, 
You'll learn to say it in a cheerful voice. 
I, too, at first desponded. To be blind, 
Turned out of nature, mulcted as a man. 
Refused the daily largess of the sun 
To humble creatures ! When the fever's heat 
Dropped from me, as the flame did from my house 
And left me ruined like it, stripped of all 
The hues and shapes of aspectable life, 
A mere bare blind stone in the blaze of day, 
A man, upon the outside of the earth, 
As dark as ten feet under, in the grave, — 
Why, that seemed hard." 

" No hope .? " 

" A tear ! you weep. 
Divine Aurora ? tears upon my hand ! 
I've seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird, — 
But, weep for me, Aurora ? Yes, there's hope. 
No hope of sight : I could be learned, dear, 
And tell you in what Greek and Latin name 
The visual nerve is withered to the root. 
Though the outer eyes appear indifferent. 
Unspotted in their crystals. But there's hope. 
The spirit from behind this dethroned sense. 



AURORA LEIGH, 339 



Sees, waits in patience till the walls break up 
From which the bas-relief and fresco have dropf : 
There's hope. The man here, once so arrogant 
And restless, so ambitious for his part, 
Of dealing with statistically packed 
Disorders (from a pattern on his nail). 
And packing such things quite another way, 
Is now contented. From his personal loss 
He has come to hope for others when they lose, 
And wear a gladder faith in what we gain . . . 
Through bitter experience, compensation sweet, 
Like that tear, sweetest. I am quiet now. 
As tender surely for the suffering world. 
But quiet, — sitting at the wall to learn. 
Content henceforth to do the thing I can ; 
For though as powerless, said I, as a stone, 
A stone can still give shelter to a worm, 
And it is worth while being a stone for that. 
There's hope, Aurora." 

" Is there hope for me ? 
For me ? — and is there room beneath the stone 
For such a worm ? And if I came and said . . . 
What all this weeping scarce will let me say, 
And yet what women cannot say at all 
But weeping bitterly . . . (the pride keeps up 
Until the heart breaks under it) ... I love, — 
I love you, Romney "... 

" Silence ! " he exclaimed 
" A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad. 
A man's distraction must not cheat his soul 
To take advantage of it. Yet 'tis hard — 
Farewell, Aurora." 

" But I love you, sir ; 
And when a woman says she loves a man, 



340 AURORA LEIGH. 

The man must hear her, though he love her not, 

Which . . . hush ! ... he has leave to answer in his turn 

She will not surely blame him. As for me, 

You call it pity, think I'm generous ? 

'Twere somewhat easier, for a woman proud 

As I am, and I'm very vilely proud, 

To let it pass as such, and press on you 

Love born of pity, — seeing that excellent loves 

Are born so, often, nor the quicker die, — 

And this would set me higher by the head 

Than now I stand. No matter. Let the truth 

Stand high ; Aurora must be humble : no. 

My love's not pity merely. Obviously 

I'm not a generous woman, never was, 

Or else, of old, I had not looked so near 

To weights and measures, grudging you the power 

To give, as first I scorned your power to judge 

For me, Aurora. I would have no gifts 

Forsooth, but God's ; and I would use them, too, 

According to my pleasure and my choice. 

As he and I were equals, you below. 

Excluded from that level of interchange 

Admitting benefaction. You were wrong 

In much ? you said so. I was wrong in most. 

Oh, most ! You only thought to rescue men 

By half-means, half-way, seeing half their wants, 

While thinking nothing of your personal gain. 

But I, who saw the human nature broad 

At both sides, comprehending too the soul's 

And all the high necessities of art. 

Betrayed the thing I saw, and wronged my own life 

For which I pleaded. Passioned to exalt 

The artist's instinct in me at the cost 

Of putting down the woman's, I forgot 



AURORA LEIGH. 34 1 

No perfect artist is developed here 

From any imperfect woman. Flower from root, 

And spiritual from natural, grade by grade 

In all our life. A handful of the earth 

To make God's image ! the despised poor earth, 

The healthy odorous earth, — I missed, with it, 

The divine breath that blows the nostrils out 

To ineffable inflatus, — ay, the breath 

Which love is. Art is much ; but love is more. 

art, my art, thou'rt much ; but love is more ! 
Art symbolizes heaven ; but love is God, 

And makes heaven. I, Aurora, fell from mine. 

1 would not be a woman like the rest, 
A simple woman who believes in love, 

And owns the right of love because she loves, 

And, hearing she's beloved, is satisfied 

With what contents God : I must analyze, 

Confront, and question, just as if a fly 

Refused to warm itself in any sun 

Till such was in leone : I must fret. 

Forsooth, because the month w^as only May, 

Be faithless of the kind of proffered love. 

And captious, lest it miss my dignity. 

And scornful that my lover sought a wdfe 

To use ... to use ! O Romney, O my love ! 

I am changed since then, changed wholly ; for indeed 

If now you'd stoop so low to take my love. 

And use it roughly, without stint or spare. 

As men use common things with more behind 

(And, in this, ever would be more behind). 

To any mean and ordinary end. 

The joy would set me, like a star in heaven, 

So high up, I should shine because of height. 

And not of virtue. Yet in one respect. 



342 AURORA LEIGH. 



Just one, beloved, I am in no wise changed : 

I love you, loved you . . . loved you first and last. 

And love you on forever. Now I know 

I loved you always, Romney. She who died 

Knew that, and said so ; Lady Waldemar 

Knows that . . . and Marian. I had known the same. 

Except that I was prouder than I knew, 

And not so honest. Ay, and as I live, 

I should have died so, crushing in my hand 

This rose of love, the wasp inside and all. 

Ignoring ever to my soul and you 

Both rose and pain, — except for this great loss, 

This great despair, — to stand before your face 

And know you do not see me where I stand. 

You think, perhaps, I am not changed from pride. 

And that I chiefly bear to say such words 

Because you cannot shame me with your eyes 

calm, grand eyes, extinguished in a storm, 
Blown out like lights o'er melancholy seas. 

Though shrieked for by the shipwrecked ! O my Dark, 
My Cloud, — to go before me every day. 
While I go ever toward the wilderness, — 

1 would that you could see me bare to the soul ! 
If this be pity, 'tis so for myself. 

And not for Romney : he can stand alone ; 

A man like hi7?i is never overcome : 

No woman like me counts him pitiable 

While saints applaud him. He mistook the world ; 

But I mistook my own heart, and that slip 

Was fatal. Romney, will you leave me here ? 

So wrong, so proud, so weak, so unconsoled, 

So mere a woman ! — and I love you so, 

I love you, Romney " — 

Could I see his face 



AURORA LEIGH. 343 

I wept so ? Did I drop against his breast, 

Or did his arms constrain me ? Were my cheeks 

Hot, overflooded, with my tears, or his ? 

And which of our two large explosive hearts 

So shook me ? That I know not. There were words 

That broke in utterance . . . melted in the fire ; 

Embrace that was convulsion . . . then a kiss 

As long and silent as the ecstatic night. 

And deep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant beyond 

Whatever could be told by word or kiss. 

But what he said ... I have written day by day, 
With somewhat even writing. Did I think 
That such a passionate rain would intercept 
And dash this last page ? What he said, indeed, 
I fain would write it down here like the rest, 
To keep it in my eyes, as in my ears. 
The heart's sweet scripture, to be read at night 
When weary, or at morning when afraid, 
And lean my heaviest oath on when I swear. 
That when all's done, all tried, all counted here. 
All great arts, and all good philosophies, 
This love just puts its hand out in a dream. 
And straight outstretches all things. 

What he said 
I fain would write. But, if an angel spoke 
In thunder, should we haply know much more 
Than that it thundered ? If a cloud came down 
And wrapt us wholly, could we draw its shape. 
As if on the outside, and not overcome ? 
And so he spake. His breath against my face 
Confused his words, yet made them more intense, — 
(As when the sudden finger of the wind 
Will wipe a row of single city lamps 



344 AURORA LEIGH. 

To a pure white line of flame, more luminous 

Because of obliteration) more intense, 

The intimate presence carrying in itself 

Complete communication, as with souls, 

Who, having put the body off, perceive 

Through simply being. Thus 'twas granted me 

To know he loved me to the depth and height 

Of such large natures, ever competent. 

With grand horizons by the sea or land, 

To love's grand sunrise. Small spheres hold small iircs ; 

But he loved largely, as a man can love. 

Who, baffled in his love, dares live his life, 

Accept the ends which God loves, for his own, 

And lift a constant aspect. 

From the day 
I brought to England my poor searching face 
(An orphan even of my father's grave), 
He had loved me, watched me, watched his soul in mine, 
Which in me grew and heightened into love. 
For he, a boy still, had been told the tale 
Of how a fairy bride from Italy, 
With smells of oleanders in her hair, 
Was coming through the vines to touch his hand ; 
Wliereat the blood of boyhood on the palm 
Made sudden heats. And when at last I came. 
And lived before him, lived, and rarely smiled, 
He smiled and loved me for the thing I was. 
As every child will love the year's first flower 
(Not certainly the fairest of the year. 
But in which the complete year seems to blow), 
The poor sad snowdrop, growing between drifts, 
Mysterious medium 'twixt the plant and frost. 
So faint with winter while so quick with spring, 
And doubtful if to thaw itself away 



AURORA LEIGH. 345 



With that snow near it. Not that Romney Leigh 

Had loved me coldly. If I thought so once, 

It was as if I had held my hand in fire, 

And shook for cold. But now I understood 

Forever, that the very fire and heat 

Of troubling passion in him burned him clear, 

And shaped to dubious order word and act ; 

That, just because he loved me over all, — 

All wealth, all lands, all social privilege, 

To which chance made him unexpected heir, — 

And just because on all these lesser gifts. 

Constrained by conscience and the sense of wrong, 

He had stamped with steady hand God's arrow-mark 

Of dedication to the human need, 

He thought it should be so, too, with his love. 

He, passionately loving, w^ould bring down 

His love, his life, his best (because the best). 

His bride of dreams, who walked so still and high 

Through flowery poems, as through meadow-grass. 

The dust of golden lilies on her feet, 

That she should walk beside him on the rocks 

In all that clang and hewing out of men, 

And help the work of help which was his life, 

And prove he kept back nothing, — not his soul. 

And when I failed him, — for I failed him, I, — 

And when it seemed he had missed my love, he thought 

'• Aurora makes room for a working-noon," 

And so, self-girded with torn strips of hope, 

Took up his life as if it were for death 

(Just capable of one heroic aim). 

And threw it in the thickest of the world, 

At which men laughed as if he had drowned a dog. 

No wonder, — since Aurora failed him first ! 

The morning and the evening made his day. 



346 AURORA LEIGH. 

But oh the night ! O bitter-sweet ! O sweet ! 

dark, O moon and stars, O ecstasy 
Of darkness ! O great mystery of love, 

In which absorbed, loss, anguish, treason's self. 

Enlarges rapture, as a pebble dropt 

In some full wine-cup over-brims the wine ! 

While we two sate together, leaned that night 

So close my very garments crept and thrilled 

With strange electric life, and both my cheeks 

Grew red, then pale, with touches from my hair 

In which his breath was ; while the golden moon 

Was hung before our faces as the badge 

Of some sublime, inherited despair, 

Since ever to be seen by only one, — 

A voice said, low and rapid as a sigh. 

Yet breaking, I felt conscious, from a smile, 

" Thank God, who made me blind to make me see ! 

Shine on, Aurora, dearest light of souls. 

Which rul'st forevermore both day and night ! 

1 am happy." 

I flung closer to his breast. 
As sword that after battle flings to sheath ; 
And, in that hurtle of united souls, 
The mystic motions which in common moods 
Are shut beyond our sense broke in on us, 
And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin, 
And all the starry turbulence of worlds 
Swing round us in their audient circles, till 
If that same golden moon were overhead 
Or if beneath our feet, we did not know. 

And then, calm, equal, smooth with weights of joy, 
His voice rose, as some chief musician's song 
Amid the old Jewish temple's Selah-pause, 



AURORA LEIGH. 347 



And bade me mark how we two met at last 
Upon this moon-bathed promontory of earth, 
To give up much on each side, then take all. 
" Beloved," it sang, " we must be here to work ; 
And men who work can only work for men, 
And, not to work in vain, must comprehend 
Humanity, and so work humanly. 
And raise men's bodies still by raising souls, 
As God did first." 

" But stand upon the earth," 
I said, " to raise them (this is human too ; 
There's nothing high which has not first been low ; 
My humbleness, said One, has made me great) ! 
As God did last." 

" And work all silently 
And simply," he returned, " as God does all ; 
Distort our nature never for our work. 
Nor count our right hands stronger for being hoofs. 
The man most man, with tenderest human hands, 
Works best for men, as God in Nazareth." 

He paused upon the word, and then resumed . 
" Fewer programmes, we who have no prescience. 
Fewer systems, we who are held, and do not hold. 
Less mapping out of masses to be saved. 
By nations or by sexes. Fourier's void. 
And Comte absurd, and Cabet, puerile. 
Subsist no rules of life outside of life, 
No perfect manners, without Christian souls : 
The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver 
Unless he had given the life, too, with the law." 

I echoed thoughtfully, — " The man most man 
Works best for men, and, if most man indeed, 



348 AURORA LEIGH. 

He gets his manhood plainest from his soul ; 

While obviously this stringent soul itself 

Obeys the old law of development, 

The spirit ever witnessing in ours, 

And love, the soul of soul, within the soul, 

Evolving it sublimely. First, God's love." 

"And next," he smiled, "the love of wedded souls. 

Which still presents that mystery's counterpart. 

Sweet shadow-rose upon the water of life. 

Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gave 

A name to ! human, vital, fructuous rose. 

Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves, 

Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbor-loves 

And civic, — all fair petals, all good scents. 

All reddened, sweetened, from one central Heart ! ' 

" Alas ! " I cried, " It was not long ago 
You swore this very social rose smelt ill." 

" Alas ! " he answered, " is it a rose at all ? 

The filial's thankless, the fraternal's hard, 

The rest is lost. I do but stand and think, 

Across the waters of a troubled life, 

This flower of heaven so vainly overhangs, 

What perfect counterpart would be in sight 

If tanks were clearer. Let us clean the tubes. 

And wait for rains. O poet, O my love. 

Since / was too ambitious in my deed. 

And thought to distance all men in success 

(Till God came on me, marked the place, and said, 

* Ill-doer, henceforth keep within this line, 

Attempting less than others ; ' and I stand 

And work among Christ's little ones, content). 



AURORA LEIGH. 349 



Come thou, my compensation, my dear sight, 

My morning-star, my morning ! rise and shine, 

And touch my hills with radiance not their own. 

Shine out for two, Aurora, and fulfil 

My falling-short that must be ! work for two, 

As I, though thus restrained, for two shall love ! 

Gaze on, with inscient vision, toward the sun, 

And from his visceral heat pluck out the roots 

Of light beyond him. Art's a service, mark : 

A silver key is given to thy clasp. 

And thou shalt stand unwearied, night and day, 

And fix it in the hard, slow-turning wards, 

To open, so, that intermediate door 

Betwixt the different planes of sensuous form 

And form insensuous, that inferior men 

May learn to feel on still through these to those, 

And bless thy ministration. The world waits 

For help. Beloved, let us love so well. 

Our work shall still be better for our love. 

And still our love be sweeter for our work. 

And both commended, for the sake of each, 

By all true workers and true lovers born. 

Now press the clarion on thy woman's lip 

(Love's holy kiss shall still keep consecrate). 

And breathe thy fine keen breath along the brass, 

And blow all class walls level as Jericho's 

Past Jordan, crying from the top of souls. 

To souls, that, here assembled on earth's flats. 

They get them to some purer eminence 

Than any hitherto beheld for clouds ! 

What height we know not, but the way we know, 

And how, by mounting ever, we attain. 

And so climb on. It is the hour for souls, 

That bodies, leavened by the will and love, 



350 AURORA LEIGH. 



Be lightened to redemption. The world's old ; 
But the old world waits the time to be renewed, 
Toward which new hearts in individual growth 
Must quicken, and increase to multitude 
In new dynasties of the race of men, 
Developed whence shall grow spontaneously 
New churches, new economies, new laws 
Admitting freedom, new societies 
Excluding falsehood : He shall make all new." 

My Romney ! — Lifting up my hand in his. 
As wheeled by seeing spirits toward the east, 
He turned instinctively, where, faint and far, 
Along the tingling desert of the sky, 
Beyond the circle of the conscious hills, 
Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glass 
The first foundations of that new, near day 
Which should be builded out of heaven to God. 
He stood a moment with erected brows 
In silence, as a creature might who gazed, — 
Stood calm, and fed his blind, majestic eyes 
Upon the thought of perfect noon : and when 
I saw his soul saw, — "Jasper first," I said, 
" And second, sapphire ; third, chalcedony ; 
The rest in order, — last an amethyst." 



vu> 



